PATRIOTISM  AND  RELIGION 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

HBW  YORK  •   BOSTON  •  CHICAGO  •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  ft  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Lre. 


PATRIOTISM 
AND  RELIGION 


BY 


SHAILER  MATHEWS,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Dean  of  the  Divinity  School  of  the  University  of  Chicago 


If *m  fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1918 


All  right*  rtterved 


COPTKIORT,    1918 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

S*t  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  October,  1918. 


TO 

THE  GRADUATES  AND  UNDERGRADUATES 

OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  NORTH  CAROLINA 

WHO  ARE  NOW  EXEMPLIFYING  THE  PATRIOTISM  OF 

DEMOCRACY  ON  THE  BATTLEFIELDS  OF  FRANCE 


383075 


PREFACE 

These  lectures  were  delivered  at  the  University 
of  North  Carolina  on  the  McNair  Foundation  in 
May,  1918.  They  cannot  claim  to  be  an  exhaus- 
tive discussion  of  their  theme,  but  they  at  least  ex- 
press an  attitude  of  mind.  It  may  be  that  they  may 
hearten  some  of  those  who,  without  abating  their 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  international  peace,  have 
been  forced  by  the  course  of  events  to  see  no 
possibility  of  attaining  that  goal  until  the  world 
is  delivered  by  war  from  the  menace  of  Ger- 
man imperialism.  At  all  events  they  are  a 
sincere  attempt  to  estimate  two  of  the  spiritual 
forces  that  underlie  social  evolution.  If  I  have  not 
dealt  at  length  with  the  economic  and  geographical 
factors  of  history,  it  is  because  I  believe  that  eco- 
nomic determinism  fails  to  account  for  human 
progress  and  makes  a  sorry  showing  as  a  final  ex- 
planation of  the  titanic  struggle  in  which  the  world 
is  engaged. 


CONTENTS 

LECTUKE  PAGE 

I    THE  KINSHIP  OF  PATRIOTISM  AND  RELIGION      i 

II    THE  MORAL  VALUES  OF  PATRIOTISM  ...     34 

IIL.  .RELIGION-  AND  WAR— — .- — -,     ,     .     .     .     77 

IV    THE  SERVICE  OF  RELIGION  TO  PATRIOTISM  .  116 


PATRIOTISM  AND  RELIGION 

LECTURE  I 

THE   KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Several  years  ago  in  company  with  a  young 
Swedish  naval  officer  I  stood  watching  a  squadron 
of  American  warships  in  the  harbor  of  the  Piraeus. 
Without  any  intention  of  giving  offense  he  sud- 
denly remarked,  "  I  don't  think  your  flag  is  very 
pretty."  Such  an  estimate  had  never  occurred  to 
me,  but  I  tried  to  look  with  dispassionate  eyes  upon 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  and  to  summon  a  detached 
aesthetic  judgment.  I  failed.  My  country's  flag 
would  not  permit  detached  judgments.  Patriot- 
ism refused  an  excursion  into  aesthetics. 

The  flags  of  nations  are  not  pieces  of  bric-a- 
brac.  They  are  symbols.  The  tri-color  of  France, 
the  union  jack  of  Great  Britain,  the  schwartz- 
weiss-roth  of  Germany,  are  not  mere  pieces  of 
cloth  independent  of  the  nations  they  represent. 
Detach  ourselves  as  best  we  may,  we  cannot  escape 
the  partialities  of  patriotism.  In  these  days,  with 


2  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

the  fresh  memory  of  the  Western  Front,  one  does 
not  need  to  be  an  Englishman  to  know  the  mean- 
ing of  Browning's  "  Home-Thoughts  from  the 
Sea": 

"Nobly,  nobly  Cape  Saint  Vincent  to  the  North- West  died 

away; 

Sunset  ran,  one  glorious  blood-red,  reeking  into  Cadiz  Bay ; 
Bluish  'mid  the  burning  water,  full  in  face  Trafalgar  lay; 
In  the  dimmest  North-East  distance  dawned  Gibraltar 

grand  and  gray ; 
'Here  and  here  did  England  help  me:  how  can  I  help 

England  ?' — say, 
Whoso  turns  as  I  this  evening  turn  to  God  to  praise  and 

pray, 
While  Jove's  planet  rises  yonder,  silent  over  Africa." 

Yet  in  times  of  peace  many  a  good  patriot  has 
discounted  national  loyalty.  He  has  elevated 
criticism  into  a  supreme  duty.  As  we  look  back 
across  the  years  of  tragedy  through  which  the 
world  is  now  passing,  we  hardly  recognize  the 
political  attitudes  of  half  a  generation  ago. 
Viewed  through  the  atmosphere  of  a  conflict  which 
strains  the  resources  of  our  nation,  the  political 
literature  filled  with  the  hypercriticism  in  which 
we  once  rejoiced  argues  a  mood  of  mind  as  foreign 
to  these  days  as  if  it  belonged  to  the  men  of  Mars. 
In  that  far  distant  world  at  peace  American  in- 


KINSHIP  OF   PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION  3 

tellectuals  prided  themselves  on  being  superior  to 
national  enthusiasm.  Impatient  of  Fourth  of 
July  oratory  and  steeped  in  the  political  thought 
of  Germany,  they  compared  the  faults  of  our 
democracy  with  the  efficiency  of  an  autocracy,  fail- 
ing to  see  that  most  of  our  faults  are  the  price  we 
pay  for  our  liberties.  Criticism  of  government, 
political  institutions,  national  habits;  contempt  of 
national  pride  as  jingoism,  were  all  but  universal. 
To  be  a  patriot  was  to  be  a  critic.  The  words  of 
Adams  and  of  Patrick  Henry,  the  daring  sen- 
tences of  the  Mecklenberg  Resolutions  and  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  were  regarded  much 
as  modern  novelists  look  upon  mid- Victorian  litera- 
ture. 

This  self-criticism  was  by  no  means  insincere, 
I  am  not  ready  to  say  it  was  wholly  unwarranted. 
But  the  startling  characteristic  which  emerges 
from  the  recollection  of  this  former  patriotism  of 
ours  is  its  coldness.  We  thought  sentiment  be- 
neath our  dignity.  Political  pessimism  had  be- 
come fashionable.  True,  we  believed  in  justice 
and,  as  events  have  proved,  were  ready  to  make 
sacrifices  to  give  justice,  but  there  was  no  catch  of 
the  throat,  no  break  of  the  voice,  as  we  set  forth 
our  national  ideals. 


4  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

To-day  the  eyes  of  our  understanding  have  been 
opened.  We  have  learned  to  see  that  much  of  that 
sophisticated  criticism  of  American  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  institutions  was  born  of  a  malignant  po- 
litical philosophy  which  had  been  implanted  within 
our  intellectual  life.  Liberty  then  forgotten  at  the 
shrine  of  a  new  god,  Teutonic  Efficiency;  democ- 
racy then  openly  challenged  to  prove  its  right  to 
exist;  are  again  ideals  for  which  men  dare  to  die. 
The  patriotic  songs  we  had  all  but  forgotten,  the 
salute  to  the  flag  we  had  never  practiced,  are  now 
tests  of  loyalty  to  a  land  that  rises  in  splendid  per- 
sonality. We  have  come  to  see  that  our  nation  is 
more  than  a  group  of  people  existing  under  one 
government  within  definite  boundaries.  It  is  our- 
selves, yet  more  than  ourselves.  It  is  a  glorious 
super-person,  possessed  of  virtues,  power,  ideals, 
daring  and  sacrifice.  Legislatures  may  harbor 
petty  politicians,  administrations  may  be  displaced, 
political  parties  may  be  assailed,  but  our  country  is 
our  country! 


As  one  attempts  thus  to  express  the  new  devotion 
which  has  called  our  nation  to  arms  and  has  filled 
America  with  a  militant  loyalty,  a  sense  of  com- 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION  5 

panionship  is  at  once  detected.  This  passion  of 
service,  this  readiness  to  sacrifice  health  and  life  for 
national  ideals  —  what  is  it  but  a  counterpart  of 
religion  ? 

As  we  analyze  this  companionship,  points  of  su- 
perficial similarity  at  once  emerge.  There  is  the 
same  symbolism  in  religion  as  in  patriotism.  The 
rite  or  the  doctrine  or  the  shibboleth  is  a  banner 
as  truly  as  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  If  in  our  critical 
moods  we  trace  unmoved  its  history  and  analyze 
its  purpose,  we  are  bewildered  when  some  one  treats 
it  as  of  no  heartfelt  importance.  It  is  a  rare  in- 
terdenominational meeting  in  which  one  does  not 
hear  good-natured  raillery  at  the  expense  of  a  rite 
or  doctrine  that  characterizes  one  of  the  religious 
bodies  there  represented.  Such  sallies  meet  with 
laughter,  but  the  parties  concerned  are  always  a  lit- 
tle perturbed.  It  is  disconcerting  to  have  that  for 
which  one's  fathers  died  and  by  which  we  symbolize 
a  faith  turned  into  a  joke.  The  rite  or  doctrine  in 
someway  focalizes  a  social  relationship  that  is 
precious  —  a  source  of  inspiration,  a  bond  with  the 
past,  a  challenge  to  the  future.  Over  against  a  re- 
ligious inheritance  as  over  against  one's  country  the 
individual  feels  dwarfed.  He  stands  thankful, 
humble  and  proud  before  the  land  in  which  he  was 


PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 


born  and  the  church  in  which  he  was  reared.  Doc- 
trines may  be  rejected,  worship  may  be  neglected, 
priests  may  be  suspected,  but  when  religion  is  really 
endangered  even  a  Voltaire  will  erect  a  temple  to 
God.  Many  a  man  looks  across  the  widening  sea 
of  disillusionment  that  sweeps  between  him  and 
an  earlier  faith  to  find  his  heart  growing  tender  as 
he  thinks  of  that  faith  in  which  his  fathers  shared. 
Hope  rises  above  debate,  looking  for  that  dear 
country,  the  home  of  God's  elect. 

But the  deeper  kinship  of  patriotism  and  religion 
lies  far  below^assmg~irnip1iptts,  and  characterizes 
national  policies  as  truly  as  the  impulses  of  citizens. 
Tnjjiipw-itegg^as  in  the- -past  it  is  a  jeommefi-origin 
of  brutaMtjtaa^iS^^^^^^^Ssio^^afi^sacri- 
To  neglect  this  spiritual  element  of  national 
personalities  is  to  misunderstand  national  characters 
and  to  prophesy  falsely  of  national  destinies.^  Pa- 
triotism and  religion  alike  are,  the  expression  of  a 
nation's  inner  life.  If  the  morale  of  an  jinny  is  a 
lcey~to  victory  or  dejfiaV-ttio  nationnTsQuLJs  the 


of  nnttnnn!  "fntnrpi  SncT  international 


Patriotism  and  religions  are  both  the  product  of 
social  history.  There  can  be  no  individualistic 
patriotism  and  no  anti-social  religion. 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION  7 

What  is  patriotism  ?  I  have  asked  many  persons, 
to  be  given  answers  which  though  apparently  various 
were  at  heart  the  same.  To  one  man  America  was 
worth  every  sacrifice  because  it  gave  opportunity  to 
men  like  himself  to  pass  from  poverty  to  education, 
prosperity  and  influence.  To  another  patriotism 
stood  for  love  of  national  institutions.  To  another 
it  was  loyalty  to  ideals  embodied  in  the  national  his- 
tory. I  came  across  in  a  little  high  school  magazine 
a  poem  by  a  young  friend  of  mine,  Lieutenant 
Walter  S.  Poague,  now  fighting  in  France,  that  puts 
the  human  side  of  patriotism  so  simply  and  sincerely 
that  I  quote  a  few  of  its  verses: 

My  native  land !     Your  shores  sink  low 

Into  the  hazy  sea, 
Which  widens  to  the  shiver, 
To  the  steady,  pulsing  quiver 
Of  the  ship  which  takes  that  dear  loved  land 

From  me. 

My  native  land !    What  does  that  mean, 

That  phrase,  to  me? 
Not  power  most  of  all, 
Nor  even  liberty, 
Nor  wealth,  nor  fame, 
Of  honor  brightly  kept; 
Not  the  high  title  of  democracy, 
Of  refuge,  haven, 
The  land  of  even  chance. 


8  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

All  these  may  mean  America,  my  native  land, 

To  others. 

But  just  to  me  it  means 

The  little  house  beneath  the  elms 

Where  I  was  born, 
And  played  on  brittle  autumn  days 
At  soldier  with  my  dog. 

My  native  land! 

You  don't  mean  great  high  phrases, 

But  just  these  simple  things  which  go 

To  make  my  home. 

And  how  I  love  you! 

More  greatly 

Than  I  ever  dared  to  hope, 

I  love  you,  dear  America 

Of  mine. 

And  if  great  sacrifices 

May  be  asked  of  me, 

I'll  give  them  happily 

To  you, 

My  own  dear  native  land. 

In  this  appealing  picture  of  a  young  man's  love 
of  his  land  is  a  better  working  idea  of  what  patriot- 
ism really  means  than  in  many  a  more  labored  dis- 
cussion. It  is  clearly  not  without  the  larger  vision 
of  that  for  which  a  fatherland  stands,  but  its  per- 
sonal identification  with  a  nation's  life  leads  directly 
to  that  which  is  in  the  heart  of  every  patriot  —  the 
sense  of  proprietorship  in  a  nation  and  that  for 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION  9 

which  a  nation  stands.  To  the  larger  import  of  this 
sense  of  unity  we  shall  repeatedly  recur.  At  pres- 
ent I  desire  less  to  anlayze  than  to  describe  the  at- 
titude. 

Loyalty  to  a  nation  is  not  theoretical  and  volun- 
tary. It  is  filial.  Our  nation  is  our  fatherland. 
Perhaps  that  is  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  take  on  a 
new  patriotism.  Love  for  step-parents  is  learned, 
not  inherited.  Criticism  of  one's  family  is  much 
like  an  attack  upon  one's  self.  Sensible  parents 
are  convinced  of  unaccountable  imperfections  in 
their  children,  but  the  protective  instinct  of  parent- 
hood comes  immediately  to  the  fore  when  neighbors 
complain  of  these  imperfections.  It  is  not  so  much 
that  parents  refuse  to  face  the  disagreeable  truth 
about  their  children  as  their  incapacity  to  believe 
it  when  it  is  told  them.  The  solidarity  of  the  family 
rebels  at  whatever  threatens  it.  To  say  that  one's 
father  or  mother  or  sister  or  wife  told  one  such  and 
such  a  thing  is  immediately  to  close  discussion  as  to 
the  truthfulness  of  the  thing  told.  The  statement 
itself  has  been  built  in  to  the  mystic  something  we 
call  our  family. 

How  similar  this  is  to  the  sense  of  proprietorship 
we  have  in  our  country.  A  young  Frenchman  who 
was  landing  at  New  York  was  asked  what  city  he 


IO  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

thought  was  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world.  "  St. 
Malo,"  the  young  man  promptly  replied.  "  I  was 
born  there." 

Is  this  not  also  true  of  religion?  There  too  we 
find  an  analogy  with  our  family  life.  There  is  no 
need  of  recalling  how  the  mystics  have  carried 
eroticism  to  unbelievable  lengths  in  order  to  express 
the  fellowship  of  the  soul  and  its  God.  The  lan- 
guage of  religion  abounds  in  family  terms.  Gods 
are  all  but  universally  fathers  and  mothers.  Prac- 
tices and  symbols  of  certain  religions  which  seem  to 
us  hideous  profanities  of  the  arcana  of  life  are  to 
many  the  expression  of  faith  in  divine  paternity  and 
maternity. 

Our  social  heritage  makes  this  persistence  of  the 
family  feeling  in  patriotism  and  religion  all  but  in- 
evitable. For  when  we  trace  civilization  back  to  its 
beginnings,  and  move  from  the  developed  to  the 
primitive  social  life  of  man,  we  find  the  family  the 
center  of  whatever  religious  and  political  activities 
may  have  existed.  The  head  of  the  family  was  both 
priest  and  ruler.  True,  by  his  side  there  were  gener- 
ally the  medicine  men,  the  witch  doctors,  and  the 
seers.  But  they  did  not  efface  the  religion  of  the 
family.  The  head  of  the  family  gave  his  name  to 
the  tribe,  and  stood  as  the  priest,  or  at  least  as  the 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION         II 

leader  of  the  worship  of  those  who  bore  his  name. 
He  led  in  war  and  in  sacrifice.  His  enemies  and  his 
god  were  family  possessions. 

When  primitive  customs  yielded  to  more  com- 
plicated economic  life,  the  family  still  dominated 
social  and  religious  action.  The  children  of  Abra- 
ham were  the  children  of  Yahweh.  Family  loyalty 
remained  the  basis  of  society  and  the  center  of  re- 
ligious practices.  The  head  of  the  family  was  su- 
preme because  he  was  the  head  of  the  family.  His 
sons  might  marry  the  daughters  of  other  families, 
but  they  made  them  members  of  his  own.  In  war 
his  family  and  his  slaves  followed  him  unhesitat- 
ingly. An  injury  to  one  of  them  was  an  injury  to 
him.  To  call  upon  his  name  was  to  invoke  his  pro- 
tection. Blood  feuds  sharpened  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  group  of  which  he  was  head  and  all  other 
groups.  His  grazing  land  was  held  by  the  preemp- 
tion of  family  rights,  and  such  property  as  was  his 
was  to  be  shared  by  all  those  who  called  him  father. 
When  he  worshiped,  he  worshiped  not  only  for 
himself,  but  for  his  tribe.  When  he  died,  his  suc- 
cessor carried  on  a  family  history  and  a  family 
religion. 

Nor  did  this  identification  of  religion  with  family 
and  state  disappear  with  primitive  society.  Class- 


12  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

ical  religion  knew  nothing  of  the  distinction  the 
modern  world  finds  between  church  and  state.  In 
Greece  and  Rome  politics  and  religion  were  phases 
of  a  common  spiritual  life. 

II 

A  second  element  of  kinship  between  patriotism 
and  religion  is  loyalty  to  a  "beloved  community." 
Just  because  one  finds  oneself  a  part  of  a  national 
or  religious  group  does  one  hear  the  call  to  service 
and  utter  the  cry  for  help.  No  state  however 
simple  has  lacked  this  quality,  and  no  definition  of 
religion  is  true  to  facts  that  overlooks  the  funda- 
mentally human  sense  of  participation  in  the  life  of 
a  group  to  which  even  one's  god  belongs.  Re- 
ligions break  with  magic  at  this  point.  For  re- 
ligions, as  distinct  from  religion,  are  efforts  to  build 
up  social  practices  of  such  a  sort  as  will  make  the 
super-human  power  or  powers  upon  which  a  group 
believes  itself  dependent,  helpful.  The  identifica- 
tion of  the  divine  purpose  with  the  group-will  has 
always  been  natural.  The  god  was  the  group's  god. 
He  shared  in  its  experiences,  rejoiced  in  its  success 
and  sorrowed  in  its  misfortunes. 

When  families,  grown  large,  formed  a  clan  or 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION         13 

tribe  the  sense  of  unity  born  of  common  descent 
and  of  common  worship  expanded.  If  a  tribe 
took  new  members  to  itself,  as  in  the  case  of  Ruth 
the  Moabite  married  to  a  Hebrew,  the  land  and  god 
became  the  clan  and  the  god  of  the  newcomer. 
There  was  a  tribal  exclusiveness  in  religion  as  truly 
as  in  descent.  However  slight  might  be  the  po- 
litical unity  that  bound  these  tribes  together,  this 
sense  of  unity  of  ancestry  and  of  deity  made  a 
community  of  spirit.  To  break  a  union  of  clans 
meant  the  break  of  the  community  of  worship.  To 
break  religious  unity  meant,  as  in  the  case  of  Jero- 
boam, to  break  tribal  confederacies.  Throughout 
history  states  have  found  at  least  partial  unity  in  the 
worship  of  the  god  of  their  political  ancestors. 
Even  the  Greek  cities  could  federate  to  support  the 
cult  of  the  Delphian  Apollo. 

When  tribes  through  conquest  built  themselves 
into  conquering  peoples,  the  worship  of  a  common 
•deity  became  even  more  a  phase  of  national  loyalty. 
Other  gods  might  be  added,  but  they  were  con- 
quered gods,  gracing  the  triumphant  progress  of 
the  god  of  the  victor.  Laws  were  sanctioned  by 
the  deity.  Human  nature  became  so  standarized 
that  there  was  practically  no  exception  to  the  rule 
that  submission  to  military  overlordship  meant  sub- 


14  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

mission  to  the  deity  who  had  made  victory  possible. 
Kings  derived  their  authority  not  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed,  but  from  the  authority  and  power 
given  them  by  some  god.  Hammurabi  organized 
the  laws  of  Babylon  in  the  name  of  the  great  god 
who  enabled  him  to  beat  down  his  enemies,  and 
who  in  his  own  opinion  and  that  of  his  people,  was 
regarded  as  his  father.  The  laws  of  the  Hebrews 
were  the  laws  of  their  god  Yahweh. 

In  all  nations  which  have  shown  military  prowess 
and  political  unity  has  there  been  this  extension  of 
the  family  authority  to  the  king  and  god.  The 
Assyrian  monarchs,  the  legendary  founders  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  the  Pharaohs  of  Egypt,  the  em- 
perors of  China  and  Japan  alike  have  based  their 
sovereignty  upon  the  divine  descent.  Alexander 
came  forth  from  the  temple  of  Ammon  the  son  of 
Ammon.  Loyalty  to  rulers  has  thus  been  identified 
with  loyalty  to  their  god.  The  rebel  and  the  enemy 
were  not  merely  political  offenders.  They  were 
enemies  of  a  god.  The  brutality  of  conquest,  mas- 
sacres, deportations,  terror ization  of  conquered  peo- 
ple, have  all  been  attributed  to  the  prowess  and  the 
will  of  a  national  god. 

Few  indeed  were  the  great  rulers  of  antiquity 
about  whose  birth  miraculous  legends  have  not 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION         15 

gathered.  Such  legends  were  the  ancient  equiva- 
lents of  a  genuine  patriotism.  And  when  these  were 
lacking,  obsequious  subjects  attributed  to  the  em- 
peror, as  in  the  case  of  Rome,  divine  qualities. 
The  power  which  the  Caesars  possessed  was  so 
enormous  and  so  unrestrained  as  to  compel  identi- 
fication with  divine  prerogative.  "  Come  see  how 
a  god  dies,"  said  the  hard-headed  Roman  emperor 
as  he  stood  upright  waiting  his  final  moment. 
Throughout  the  conquered  nations  rose  altars  to 
men  who  exercised  from  Rome  a  control  that  seemed 
too  great  for  mortals.  To  refuse  to  sacrifice  upon 
these  altars  was  no  more  atheism  than  disloyalty. 
Nor  need  we  look  to  distant  periods  for  this  re- 
liance upon  the  deity  as  the  source  of  sovereignty. 
In  the  struggle  which  marked  the  rise  of  modern 
European  monarchies  a  form  of  semi-deification  is 
to  be  found  generally.  The  advocates  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings,  it  is  true,  shrank  from  attributing 
divine  paternity  to  their  sovereigns,  but  they  did  not 
hesitate  to  teach  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  monarch 
was  derived  from  God.  The  early  struggle  be- 
tween English  democracy  and  Stuart  absolutism  was 
not  merely  political.  It  was  a  struggle  against  a 
king  who  claimed  by  divine  right  to  be  head  of  the 
church  as  well  as  head  of  the  state.  To  claim  in- 


1 6  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

dependence  in  religion  was  to  argue  disloyalty  to 
the  state. 

In  most  recent  times  we  see  the  struggle  renewed. 
The  constant  appeal  of  Germans  to  the  German  God, 
their  "  Old  Ally,"  is  survival  of  the  same  belief  that 
the  sovereign  is  the  representative  of  God.  "  Never 
will  I  let  a  sheet  of  written  paper,"  said  Frederick 
William  IV,  "  come  like  a  second  Providence  be- 
tween our  Lord  God  in  Heaven  and  this  land,  to 
govern  us  by  its  paragraphs."  In  Germany  as  in 
Babylon  the  outcome  is  brutality.  The  identifica- 
tion of  the  sovereign's  will  with  the  will  of  God  has 
justified  massacre,  deportation,  terrorization.  The 
continuity  of  history  between  the  German  God  and 
the  ancient  tribal  god  is  unbroken.  The  religious 
leaders  of  Germany  are  taught  to  speak  in  the  name 
of  God  when  they  publish  the  policies  of  the  Kaiser. 
The  German  nation  is  the  nation  of  the  "  old  Ger- 
man God."  It  is  a  German  God,  the  Kaiser  de- 
clares, who  goes  with  the  German  armies  into  Bel- 
gium and  northern  France.  It  is  a  German  God  who 
is  praised  for  the  miseries  inflicted  upon  Serbia  and 
Poland.  It  is  a  German  God  who  is  worshiped 
when  life  and  property,  human  happiness  and  the 
control  of  other  peoples  are  trampled  under  foot. 
To  doubt  his  presence  is  to  violate  religion  as  truly 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION        17 

as  patriotism.  "  We  are  all  aware,"  says  Die  Frie- 
denswart  (February,  1916),  "  that  our  great  general 
[Hindenburg]  prepares  his  plans  in  collaboration 
with  God.  He  is  in  constant  communication,  not 
only  with  the  different  bodies  of  troops,  but  also 
with  the  supreme  Arbiter  of  Battles,  with  the  King 
of  Kings  who  dwells  in  the  heavens  above.  This 
is  why  God  is  with  him  and  gives  him  success." 
German  patriotism  is  as  truly  identified  with  official 
German  religion  as  was  the  pride  of  Sennacherib 
with  the  praise  of  Marduk.  The  state  is  the  ob- 
ject of  religious  loyalty.  "  We  can  —  it  may  sound 
strange,  but  it  has  its  deep  meaning/'  says  Pastor 
Lehman,  "  we  can  say :  We  love  our  earthly 
Fatherland  so  much  that  we  gladly  barter  our 
heavenly  for  it."  "  Germany  is  the  center  of  God's 
plans  for  the  world." 

Ill 

This  community  of  history  shared  by  patriotism 
and  religion  has  naturally  expressed  itself  in  re- 
ligious conceptions.  Religion,  insofar  as  it  has  been 
reduced  to  formulae,  has  always  been  a  super- 
patriotism.  Theology  has  been  a  super-politics. 
All  but  universally  the  relations  of  God  and  hu- 


1 8  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

manity  have  been  set  forth  in  the  terms  of  the  state. 

Such  an  exposition  was  normal  and  inevitable. 
The  higher  values  of  life  have  always  been  ex- 
pressed in  the  language  and  conceptions  taught  by 
the  greatest  experiences  of  life.  Language  has 
gained  its  power  by  transcendentalizing  the  terms 
of  simple  experience.  One  needs  only  a  superficial 
knowledge  of  philology  to  see  how  words  which 
have  had  their  origin  in  concrete  and  commonplace 
experiences  have  been  by  a  process  of  analogy  ex- 
tended into  fields  which  lie  beyond  these  experi- 
ences. The  most  abstract  words  of  our  diction- 
aries are  really  hieroglyphs.  What  is  "  attention  " 
but  the  stretching  of  the  mind  towards  something? 
What  is  "  metaphysics  "  but  that  which  is  above  the 
physical  ? 

Thus  it  is  not  strange  that  religious  thinking  is 
based  upon  the  practices  of  a  monarchial  state.  It 
is  indeed  only  one  phase  of  a  universal  mental 
process  when  men  speak  of  God  as  Father  and 
King;  of  a  nation  as  his  children;  of  misfortune  as 
his  punishment;  and  of  happiness  as  his  reward. 
As  social  life  developed  it  was  inevitable  that  the 
creative  social  minds  which  were  finding  expression 
in  new  political  forms  and  institutions  —  imperial- 
ism, feudalism,  nationalism  —  should  have  used  the 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION         19 

terms  of  the  state  in  which  they  expressed  their 
highest  relations  of  life,  for  the  expression  of  the 
relations  of  religion.  That  these  should  have  been 
drawn  from  monarchy  is  also  only  what  we  should 
expect. 

In  the  Hebrew  religion  this  has  been  particu- 
larly true.  No  religion  has  so  consistently  worked 
out  its  concepts  in  the  laboratory  of  politics.  One 
has  only  to  recall  the  great  words  of  Hebrew  the- 
ology —  most  of  which  live  on  in  Christian  theology 
—  to  realize  the  truth  of  this  statement.  God  was 
a  sovereign  who  gave  his  laws.  To  keep  these  laws 
was  to  be  assured  of  the  good  will  of  the  sovereign; 
to  violate  them  was  to  be  equally  assured  of  his  en- 
mity. Across  the  future  loomed  the  great  Day  of 
Yahweh  in  which  punishment  should  be  inflicted 
upon  those  who  had  been  disobedient,  and  prosperity 
should  be  assured  those  who  had  been  loyal  to  their 
God. 

In  later  Judaism  these  thoughts  became  tinged 
with  the  national  desire  for  revenge.  The  Jew  of  the 
first  century  and  a  half  before  and  the  first  century 
and  a  half  after  Christ,  chafed  under  the  domina- 
tion of  a  succession  of  world  powers  which  not 
only  denied  the  supremacy  of  Yahweh  but  also 
crushed  his  people.  The  national  heart  was  hot 


2O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

with  the  desire  to  avenge  this  oppression  and  to 
establish  the  Jewish  nation  supreme  over  all  the 
world. 

In  the  minds  of  many  Jews  such  a  reversal  of  con- 
ditions meant  only  revolution.  The  god  of  the  na- 
tion, so  the  Zealots  argued,  would  certainly  prove 
to  be  a  deliverer  if  once  the  nation  faced  the  alterna- 
tive of  complete  destruction  or  deliverance.  And 
so  the  Jewish  nation  revolted,  only  to  find  that  its 
sovereign  God  did  not  deliver  it  from  the  sover- 
eignty of  Rome. 

But  other  Jews  were  less  ready  for  the  direct  ac- 
tion of  revolution  and  looked  forward  to  the  time 
when  Yahweh  through  miracle  would  make  the  na- 
tion the  master  of  the  world.  The  numerous 
apocalypses  to  which  these  three  centuries  gave  birth 
set  forth  in  symbolic  terms  this  hope  of  national 
deliverance  and  national  revenge.  King  Yahweh 
would  make  his  people  triumphant;  his  representa- 
tive, the  One  Annointed  to  do  his  will,  would  estab- 
lish his  capital  at  Jerusalem,  and  all  the  world  should 
be  his  subjects.  Judea's  enemies  should  suffer  in- 
calculable pain  in  return  for  the  sorrows  they  had 
caused,  while  all  the  Jews,  even  if  they  had  to  be 
brought  up  from  Sheol  and  given  new  bodies,  would 


KINSHIP   OF    PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        21 

share  in  the  glory  of  world  domination  and  the  sight 
of  the  sufferings  of  their  enemies. 

This  is  the  messianic  hope  which  beat  in  the 
hearts  of  all  loyal  Jews ;  a  hope  that  was  as  religious 
as  it  was  political ;  in  which  angels  conquered  devils 
as  well  as  men ;  and  in  which  hell  with  its  abyss  of 
fire  would  welcome  angels  as  truly  as  men.  Jewish 
messianism  was  a  transcendentalized  hope  of  na- 
tional supremacy,  a  religious  faith  eager  for  human 
and  divine  brutality,  an  ancient  forerunner  of  the 
Teutonic  confidence  that  its  Old  Ally,  God,  will  give 
power  to  the  German  people  to  crush  its  enemies, 
terrorize  them  by  indescribable  brutalities,  and 
spread  over  the  world  Teutonic  Kultur. 

This  messianic  program  was  the  mold  into  which 
the  early  Christians  ran  their  faith.  Jesus  himself 
repudiated  its  militaristic  quality,  declaring  that  the 
true  Deliverer  would  be  greater  than  a  militaristic 
son  of  David,  that  the  King  is  a  father  rather  than 
a  conqueror,  that  the  triumph  of  His  will  will 
come  when  men  love  even  their  enemies,  and 
they  become  His  real  sons  not  by  ruling  over  a 
crushed  humanity  but  by  possessing  that  spirit  of 
love  which  is  possessed  by  their  Father  in  heaven. 
But  the  early  Christians  could  not  so  understand 


22  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Him.  As  Jews  they  kept  their  Jewish  hopes.  Con- 
vinced that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  of  their  hopes, 
they  looked  for  the  kingdom  to  be  restored  to  Israel. 
When  Jesus  tried  to  make  them  see  that  he,  the 
revelation  of  the  Father,  would  suffer  ignominy  and 
death  rather  than  gain  control  over  human  lives  by 
appeal  to  force,  they  were  silent  and  afraid.  When 
their  faith  in  his  imminent  triumph  sprang  anew, 
they  thought  of  him  as  returning  from  heaven  as  the 
judge  rather  than  the  brother  of  mankind,  of  his 
coming  as  the  Day  of  Yahweh  in  which  they  would 
achieve  individual  blessing  and  national  supremacy. 
Paul  sufficiently  sympathized  with  Jesus  to  realize 
that  the  new  era  would  not  be  an  era  of  Jews  but  of 
those  of  every  nation  who  accepted  Jesus  as  their 
Lord;  yet  even  Paul  did  not  free  himself  entirely 
from  his  Jewish  chauvinism.  The  salvation  which 
was  daily  nearer,  the  day  of  the  Lord  which  was 
about  to  dawn,  waited  for  the  conversion  of  the 
Jewish  people  and  was  described  by  him  in  terms  of 
the  law  court.  The  Christ  was  to  sit  on  a  throne 
which  was  to  be  a  judgment  seat.  Salvation  was  to 
follow  acquittal,  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  to  be 
a  heavenly  state  in  which  the  wrath  of  God  was  to 
confound  all  His  enemies. 
\  Such  a  program  for  a  transcendentalized  nation  to 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        23 

be  founded  by  Jesus  in  his  miraculous  return  in  the 
skies  became  the  vertebral  column  of  Christian 
thinking.  It,  rather  than  the  noble  moral  system  of 
Jesus  and  Paul,  found  its  way  into  the  creeds.  The 
hope  of  the  church  was  expressed  in  the  language  of 
the  state,  and  martyrs  died,  not  to  express  a  hope  in 
a  humanity  lifted  above  passions  of  revenge  into  a 
divine  fraternity,  but  because  they  believed  in  a  tri- 
umphant Christ  who  should  establish  his  reign  upon 
earth.  The  morality  of  Christians  was  to  be  the 
conduct  of  those  whose  citizenship  was  in  heaven. 

The  system  of  theology  which  constitutes  so  large 
an  element  of  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine  of  both 
Roman  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  was  com- 
pleted by  Thomas  Aquinas.  Aristotle,  the  Bible, 
and  the  church  furnished  him  materials.  The  great 
rubrics  of  his  teaching  were  not  metaphysical  but 
political.  Human  experience  in  politics  was  lifted 
into  the  higher  air  of  philosophy.  The  political 
practices  of  his  day  were  transformed  by  the  use  of 
Aristotelian  philosophy  into  the  principles  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Theology  became  a  super-poli- 
tics; and  religion  became  a  super-patriotism  that 
sought  its  ideals  in  service  to  the  God  of  Heaven. 
Christians  became  heirs  of  the  Other  World,  human 
life  a  pilgrimage  through  a  world  of  misery  to  the 


24  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Heavenly  City,  and  salvation  a  retreat  from  a  lost 
humanity. 

IV 

Nothing  was  easier  for  this  orthodoxy  of  the 
church  than  to  express  itself  as  a  patriotism  which 
centered  about  a  divine  monarchy.  But  a  different 
situation  arises  in  the  days  of  democracy.  Here  we 
pass  into  a  creative  rather  than  an  inherited  patriot- 
ism. What  fellowship  has  democracy  with  religion  ? 
Can  it  too,  as  the  mood  of  a  social  mind,  give  form 
and  terms  to  religious  thought?  Can  theology  de- 
scribe a  divine  super-democracy? 

Democracy  is  more  than  a  term.  Social  questions 
cannot  be  answered  by  definitions,  after  the  method 
of  the  Schoolmen.  They  thought  that  if  they 
could  define  a  word,  they  had  the  thing  for  which 
the  word  stood.  The  term  democracy  is  subject  to 
these  general  observations.  If  you  treat  it  as  a 
mere  word,  you  may  define  it  so  as  to  get  almost  any 
sort  of  program.  If  you  treat  it  as  a  picture  that 
symbolizes  actual  social  experiences,  you  get  some- 
thing distinct  and  historical.  It  is  in  this  latter  way 
that  it  must  be  used.  Religion  and  politics  to-day 
do  not  face  academic  definitions,  but  actual  social 
development,  recognized  institutions,  a  demolition  of 


KINSHIP   OF    PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        25 

precedents  and  a  general  creation  of  new  attitudes 
and  aptitudes  in  society. 

Democracy  is  more  than  an  ideal.  It  is  a  dis- 
cernible development  of  institutions.  As  such  it 
should  be  regarded  historically,  not  theoretically. 
And  as  a  development  of  institutions  it  has  not  been 
symmetrical  in  different  nations.  In  practice  de- 
mocracy must  be  described  as  the  development  of  the 
rights  of  Englishmen  into  the  rights  of  humanity. 
That  which  the  Englishmen  claimed  as  rights  in 
England,  our  intellectual  and  idealistic  development 
has  made  the  basis  of  our  conception  of  whatever 
democracy  we  actually  enjoy.  Not  programs  but 
genetic  development  has  been  the  method  by  which 
such  democracy  as  the  world  actually  possesses  has 
become  the  precious  heritage  of  humanity.  We  are 
at  war  to  preserve  a  real  world  in  the  making,  not  a 
Utopia  that  men  have  dreamed. 

This  actual  democracy  has  been  largely  outside 
the  range  of  economics  and  within  the  range  of  poli- 
tics. The  founders  of  the  American  Republic  were 
not  concerned  with  economic  democracy.  In  fact, 
it  is  probable  that  if  they  had  thought  of  it,  they 
would  have  bitterly  opposed  it.  To  think  of  pro- 
ductive wealth  in  a  collective  fashion  was  something 
that  obviously  they  never  dreamed  of.  And  this 


26  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

conclusion  is  enforced  by  the  fact  that  they  left  in 
the  American  Constitution  economic  factors  some  of 
which  plunged  the  nation  into  civil  war,  and  others 
which  are  at  present  serving  as  the  basis  of  a  federal 
paternalism.  What  the  future  may  have  in  store 
for  a  democratized  world  we  cannot  foretell.  But 
in  the  light  of  our  past  experience  we  must  believe 
that  the  process  of  extending  popular  rights  by  ex- 
tending privileges  enjoyed  by  some  favored  class, 
will  continue.  Already  its  direction  is  becoming  ap- 
parent. Political  rights  inevitably  involve  economic 
rights. 

We  are  apt  to  forget  the  concrete  if  limited  char- 
acter of  the  only  democracy  the  modern  world  has 
enjoyed,  and  to  speak  as  if,  like  the  Idea  of  Plato, 
democracy  somewhere  existed  complete  and  ap- 
proachable. I  remember  once  hearing  a  young 
Jewish  girl  who  had  fled  from  Russia,  severely  criti- 
cize the  restraints  of  America.  The  sort  of  thing  I 
fancy  she  had  in  mind  was  not  the  actual  liberty  she 
had  never  enjoyed  till  she  came  to  America,  but  the 
sort  of  Paradise  bolshevikism  undertakes  to  produce 
by  the  transfer  of  autocratic  control  from  the  Czar 
to  the  proletariat.  Russia  like  France  under  the 
Mountain  is  suffering  from  the  democracy  of  pro- 
gram. 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        27 

Sometimes  men  speak  of  the  democracy  of  Ger- 
many. There  is  no  democracy  in  Germany  in  the 
sense  that  there  is  a  democratic  movement  in  Anglo- 
American  history.  The  very  Socialism  of  Germany 
is  not  democratic.  The  political  development  of 
Germany  has  consciously  been  opposed  to  that  which 
has  characterized  the  Anglo-Saxon  stock.  The 
heart  of  Anglo-French  and  Anglo-American  democ- 
racy is  this :  the  people  as  such  control  their  govern- 
ment, the  authority  of  the  state  resides  in  the  people, 
and  sovereignty  lies  in  the  people  and  not  outside 
the  people.  That  conception  sharply  differentiates 
the  development  of  the  British,  French,  and  Ameri- 
can democracies,  and  most  constitutional  monarchies 
from  the  Germanic  institutions.  The  heart  of  the 
Anglo-American  representative  democracies  is  that 
a  government  derives  its  authorities  and  sanctions 
from  the  people  governed.  It  is  the  executive  com- 
mittee of  the  people  themselves.  The  heart  of  the 
German  conception  is  that  the  government  derives 
its  authority  from  God  and  not  from  the  people. 
The  democracy  of  England,  America,  and  France 
has  been  worked  out  in  revolutions  in  which  the 
people  dared  face  an  oppressive  government.  In- 
deed, practically  all  constitutional  governments  have 
been  born  of  peoples  who  dared  revolt  rather  than 


28  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

lose  their  rights.  The  German  blood  of  all  Europe 
has  never  accomplished  a  successful  revolution. 
Face  to  face  with  their  government  Germans  have 
always  quit  the  struggle  for  popular  rights.  Ger- 
man patriotism  has  never  centered  about  the  rights 
of  individuals.  There  has  never  been  a  German  de- 
mocracy because  Germans  have  never  cared  enough 
about  democracy  to  organize  a  revolution. 

This  difference  in  political  loyalties  explains  dif- 
ferences in  the  religious  attitudes  of  autocracies  and 
democracies.  Democracy  in  America  was  the  child 
of  religious  liberty.  Professor  Jellinek  of  Vienna 
has  shown  the  influence  of  this  independent  move- 
ment in  the  colonial  churches  of  America  upon  the 
idea  of  the  development  of  the  rights  of  man.  He 
traces  back  the  succession  of  the  Declarations  of  the 
Rights  of  Men  and  Citizens  which  appeared  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  religious 
organizations  and  institutions  of  New  England. 
And  it  is,  I  think,  beyond  question  that  the  under- 
lying forces  of  political  democracy  working  through 
the  English  experience  of  the  seventeenth  century 
were  deepened  "and  given  spiritual  thrust  by  a  re- 
ligious democracy.  Democracy  in  the  church  came 
from  and  gave  new  meaning  to  democracy  in  poli- 
tics. German  Christianity  has  not  had  that  line  of 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        29 

development  because  Germany  had  no  democracy  to 
make  it  possible.  The  control  of  the  church  by  the 
German  states  makes  actual  religious  democracy, 
that  is,  the  popular  control  of  the  church,  impos- 
sible. It  is  not  there,  it  never  will  be  there,  so  long 
as  democracy  is  not  there.  Because  the  Lutheran 
church  has  been  a  creature  of  politics  it  has  never 
founded  a  democratic  state.  German  Protestantism 
has  been  democratic  only  in  non-German  democ- 
racies. 

Democratic  development  has  appeared  in  church 
organizations  but  seldom  if  ever  in  religious  think- 
ing. Looking  at  actual  history,  no  theological  sys- 
tem has  expressed  the  fundamental  passion  and 
ideals  of  this  Anglo-American  democracy.  Democ- 
racy even  yet  has  not  supplied  actual  constructive 
theological  data  or  rubrics.  Yet  it  has  not  been 
without  influence.  Negatively,  it  has  served  to 
weaken  certain  theological  conceptions.  Wherever, 
for  example,  there  is  a  real  democracy  the  discussion 
of  the  sovereignty  of  God  has  grown  faint.  We 
very  properly  speak  of  God  and  His  laws,  but  people 
filled  with  the  spirit  of  democracy  are  not  much  con- 
cerned with  conceptions  of  the  sovereignty  of  God 
born  of  political  formulas.  Democratic  influence 
has  all  but  ended  discussion  of  foreordination  and 


3O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

election.  Hundreds  of  years  ago,  before  the  leaven 
of  democracy  had  worked  in  human  experience,  men 
had  very  much  concern  about  such  doctrines.  Re- 
call only  the  Synod  of  Dort  and  the  execution  of 
John  of  Barneveldt.  Men  influenced  by  democratic 
ideals  believe  in  the  power  of  God  and  the  purpose 
of  God,  but  they  draw  the  description  of  such  attri- 
butes from  the  field  of  science.  Natural  law  rather 
than  legal  statutes  is  their  symbol  of  God's  will. 
They  have  not  yet  sufficiently  expressed  democracy 
in  their  social  life  to  be  able  to  think  instinctively  of 
God  from  the  point  of  view  of  democracy,  but  every 
new  struggle  for  the  extension  of  democracy  makes 
such  thought  more  inevitable. 

We  say,  and  I  think  very  properly,  that  one  cause 
of  the  failure  of  our  inherited  theology  to  inspire 
the  modern  world  is  because  it  was  incubated  in  a 
period  of  monarchy  where  there  was  no  religious 
liberty,  that  it  embodies  autocratic  ideals,  and  that 
it  therefore  no  longer  is  in  functional  relation  with 
the  modern  mind.  Every  dominant  creed  was  the 
product  of  a  social  mind  that  had  not  been  touched 
by  the  ideals  of  liberty.  If  it  had  been  so  touched 
it  would  not  have  made  a  creed  to  which  men  would 
be  required  to  conform.  Creeds  and  confessions 
were  organized  in  no  small  way  for  the  purpose  of 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        3! 

keeping  heretics  out  of  the  church  and  for  making 
trouble  for  people  who  did  not  accept  them.  That 
purpose  is  the  fruit  of  ecclesiastical  autocracy,  not 
of  democracy. 

The  real  expression  of  democracy  in  religious 
thinking  is  outside  the  field  of  orthodox  theology. 
We  can  no  longer  think  of  God  as  spatially  separate 
from  the  world  of  action.  He  is  with  us  till  the 
end  of  the  age.  Most  of  the  constructive  work  now 
being  done  in  the  field  of  theology  is  by  way  of  ex- 
tending Christian  principles  into  social  justice.  By 
the  process  of  social  reconstruction  where  democracy 
is  working,  lives  are  being  fired  with  the  conviction 
that  human  beings  have  value  as  men  and  women. 
The  creative  theological  thinking  of  the  past 
twenty-five  years  has  been  done  by  men  of  the  new 
patriotism  —  men  in  sympathy  with  the  social  move- 
ments of  the  day.  To  them  God  is  not  an  absentee 
monarch,  but  the  inner  Life  of  the  universe  express- 
ing His  will  in  nature's  forces  and  the  growing 
morality  of  the  group-will.  All  recent  books  of 
theological  significance  have  belonged  to  that  new 
region  into  which  prophetic  souls  are  entering, 
where  we  have  learned  to  see  men  and  women  as 
persons ;  where  we  have  learned  to  see  that  they  have 
rights ;  and  where  we  are  learning  to  give  them  and 


32  PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 

get  them  justice.  Only  where  the  spirit  of  democ- 
racy is  working  is  there  creative  religious  thinking. 
Only  there  is  the  union  of  the  patriotism  and  the 
religion  of  to-morrow.  For  in  democracy  alone  can 
the  immanence  of  God  be  expressed  in  the  terms 
of  human  experience. 


When  one  thus  considers  the  historical  kinship 
of  patriotism  and  religion,  it  is  seen  to  be  something 
more  than  an  inheritance.  It  is  psychological. 
Each  is  a  complementary  aspect  of  the  same  mood 
of  the  social  mind.  Loyalty  to  one  set  of  political 
institutions  involves  loyalty  to  a  conception  of  re- 
ligion, both  positively  and  negatively.  From  such 
a  point  of  view  the  world- war  gains  an  even  more 
tragic  aspect.  It  is  not  merely  institutions,  histories, 
and  governments  that  oppose  each  other  in  the  per- 
sons of  millions  of  men  seeking  to  kill  one  another, 
but  two  types  of  patriotism  and  two  types  of  re- 
ligion. On  the  one  side  is  a  religion  which  is  the 
servant  of  the  state;  on  the  other  is  a  social  order 
that  is  already  finding  its  way  into  a  religion  that 
promises  light  and  freedom  for  the  human  soul. 
Nations  and  social  institutions  fight  from  the  North 


KINSHIP   OF   PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION        33 

Sea  to  the  Indian  Ocean  and  with  them  two  concep- 
tions of  Christianity.  The  patriotism  of  contend- 
ing nations  has  been  identified  with  their  religious 
development.  The  issue  involves  not  merely  world 
markets,  colonies,  places  in  the  sun,  freedom  of  the 
seas.  Besides  these  are  a  new  future  for  democracy 
and  a  religion  worthy  of  democracy.  When  peace 
comes  it  will  find  the  world  freed  of  the  fear  of  a 
modern  Sennacherib  praising  his  tribal  God ;  assured 
of  opportunity  for  the  development  of  a  spiritual 
life  in  which  justice  shall  be  advanced  between  indi- 
viduals and  nations  and  the  religion  of  Jesus  shall 
inspire  and  direct  social  evolution.  Patriotism  and 
religion  will  be  the  expression  of  a  creative  social 
mind,  no  longer  monarchical  or  feudal  but  demo- 
cratic, more  bent  on  giving  justice  than  on  national 
growth  through  annexations  and  indemnities,  wor- 
shiping a  God  who  is  a  Father  of  rather  than  a  God 
of  battles  and  of  conquest. 


LECTURE  II 

THE    MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM 

A  nation  is  more  than  a  group  of  people  living 
under  a  government  and  occupying  a  certain  area. 
Of  this  we  are  sure.  Yet  just  how  to  define  the 
word  lies  beyond  our  power.  Nationality  is  as  shy 
of  definition  as  life  itself.  In  some  cases  it  seems 
to  express  a  common  descent  and  inheritance  of  the 
same  customs;  but  some  who,  like  the  Slavs,  share 
such  descent  and  inheritances,  have  no  political 
unity.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  United  States,  it  is  the 
expression  of  political  unity  with  no  community  of 
origin.  Sometimes  political  history,  origin,  and 
community  of  cultural  inheritances  go  to  make  up 
national  feeling,  as  in  the  case  of  France,  England, 
and  Japan,  although  even  in  these  countries  each 
population  may  be  traced  back  to  different  ethnic 
stocks.  Modern  nations  have  their  history,  but  they 
themselves  are  more  than  history.  In  them  all  there 
is  the  plus  element  which  for  lack  of  a  better  term 
may  be  called  a  national  spirit.  As  President 

34 


THE  MORAL  VALUES  OF  PATRIOTISM     35 

Faunce  has  so  well  said,  "  Nationality  is  a  collective^ 
memory  and  a  collective  hope.'*  Yet  when  we  un- 
dertake to  analyze  and  describe  this  spirit  we  find 
ourselves  again  involved  in  a  maze  of  forces  cross- 
ing and  recrossing  one  another,  by  no  means  easy 
to  combine  either  in  logic  or  in  fact. 

In  treating  of  a  nation  we  thus  have  to  deal  with 
an  entity  which  is  more  or  less  logically  arbitrary, 
but  virtually  real.  It  is  more  than  a  form  of  gov- 
ernment. France,  as  example,  for  centuries  slowly 
evolved  from  a  group  of  feudal  states  at  last  to  find 
a  unity  in  a  constitution.  But  France  to  the  French- 
man —  and  nowadays  to  the  world !  —  stands  for 
something  vastly  more  than  a  political  unity.  It 
has  a  place  and  a  mission  in  the  world  to  which  its 
government  is  almost  incidental.  Similarly  in  the 
case  of  Germany.  The  German  Empire  as  a  politi- 
cal unity  is  vastly  less  important  than  das 
Deutschtum. 

^  So  it  comes  to  pass  that  loyalty  to  one's  nation 
xis  far  more  inclusive  than  loyalty  to  one's  govern- 
ment. True,  when,  as  in  the  case  of  Germany,  a 
government  is  set  forth  as  the  state  and  makes  its 
own  ambitions  and  policies  a  national  program,  it 
becomes  the  object  of  loyalty.  But  the  nation, 
whatever  may  be  its  constitutional  aspect,  is  more 


36  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

than  its  government.  Loyalty  to  one's  nation  — 
or  when  government  is  imperfect  or  lacking,  one's 
people  —  is  the  only  workable  definition  of  patriot- 
ism. On  the  one  side  it  is  a  sort  of  property  right 
in  a  social  inheritance,  and^onjhe  other  sidejtjs  an 
idealistic  devotion  to  the  mission  which  its  citizens 
believe  is  the  duty  of  a  state  to  perjEorm. 

It  follows  that  patriotism^  gets  its  highest  moral 
values  not  from  itself  as  a  state  of  soul.  Patriotism 
no  more  than  sincerity  is  a  guaranty  of  wisdom.  Its 
moral  values  are  derived  from  the  significance  of 
the  nation  to  humanity.  If  this  significance  be 
morally  indefensible,  patriotism  becomes  a  menace. 
If  the  political,  economic,  and  international  policies 
of  a  nation  tend  to  establish  a  better  world  order, 
patriotism  is  an  evangel  of  peace  and  justice. 


At  the  outset  of  any  attempt  to  estimate  the  worth 
of  patriotism  we  are  met  by  the  denial  of  the  legiti- 
macy of  the  feeling  itself.  Nor  is  this  denial  that  of 
the  famous  —  and  too  often  misunderstood  —  say- 
ing of  Samuel  Johnson,  "  Patriotism  isjhejast  re- 

It  involves  the  legitimacy 


of  nationalism  itself.     Radical  democracy  rejects 


THE    MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  37 

patriotism  because  it  is  loyalty  to  a  national  destiny. 
The  orthodox  socialist  is  an  anti-nationalist.  The 
line  of  cleavage  which  he  would  establish  runs  be- 
tween economic  classes  and  not  between  political 
entities.  To  that  end  he  would  abolish  national 
loyalties.  Three-quarters  of  a-xentury  ago  Marx 
proclaimed  the  revolutionary  doctrine  that  patriotism 
and  a  sense  of  national  unity  are  the  survival  of  a 
doomed  bourgeois  order,  a  superstition  born  of  the 
deception  of  the  proletariat  in  the  interest  of  their 
subjection  to  the  bourgeoisie.  In  its  place  he  would 
have  established  an  internationalism  based  on  the 
world-wide  union  of  workingmen.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  Marxian  socialism,  fraternity  is  identical 
with  a  united  proletariat  and  the  breaking  down  of 
national  units.  Just  how  this  world  wide  unity  of 
the  working  classes  is  to  be  accomplished,  just  what 
the  future  is  to  substitute  for  nations,  socialism  has 
not  ventured  to  set  forth  in  any  thoroughly  con- 
structive program.  It  is  content  for  the  present  to 
emphasize  the  negative  side  of  progress  and  to  seek 
the  destruction  of  existing  social  and  economic  in- 
stitutions, relegating  social  reorganization  to  social 
revolution  itself.  Theoretically,  therefore,  orthodox 
socialism  is  opposed  to  war  and  to  nationality  as  the 
great  dangers  to  proletarian  solidarity. 


38  PATRIOTISM    AND    RELIGION 

All  this,  however,  with  two  outstanding  excep- 
tions. The  first  exception  is  that  of  the  bolshevik 
socialism  of  Russia.  How  far  this  movement  has 
been  financed  by  Germany  is  still  a  matter  of  con- 
jecture. At  all  events  it  has  helped  Germany  beyond 
calculation.  Its  champions,  however,  are  consistent 
Marxians  in  their  pacifism.  They  have  naively 
sought  to  attach  to  themselves  the  working  classes 
of  Germany  and  Austria,  and  have  brought  about  a 
national  debacle  under  the  guise  of  proletarian  soli- 
darity. Their  red  flag  flying  above  their  embassy 
in  Berlin  is  a  flaunting  of  a  fatal  internationalism  in 
the  face  of  anti-democratic  autocracy.  Universal 
democracy  as  truly  as  Russia  is  paying  the  fearful 
price  of  the  effort  of  idealistic  sheep  to  convert  ma- 
terialistic wolves.  Brest-Litovsk  is  the  appalling 
reductio  ad  absurdum  of  anti-nationalism.  Prom- 
ises of  a  socialist  Utopia  have  been  fulfilled  in  Ger- 
man conquest.  For  German  socialists  of  the  ma- 
jority group,  so  far  from  uniting  with  their  bolshevik 
brothers  in  a  proletarian  world-order,  have  supported 
the  Hohenzollern  autocracy. 

The  second  exception  is  that  of  German  socialists 
in  the  United  States.  Here  the  movement  has  been 
so  thoroughly  organized  by  German  sympathizers 
that  it  has  become  an  outstanding  center  of  oppo- 


THE   MORAL   VALUES   OF    PATRIOTISM  39 

sition  to  war  by  the  United  States  against  Germany. 
Masquerading  as  opposition  to  war  itself,  national- 
istic tendencies  in  Germany  have  reexpressed  them- 
selves among  German  socialists  in  the  United  States. 
The  St.  Louis  vote  of  the  socialist  party  has  ex- 
pressed the  attitude  of  Teutonic  socialism.  Non- 
socialist  Germans  in  the  political  campaigns  have  at- 
tached themselves  to  socialistic  opposition  to  a  war 
with  Germany.  In  their  secret  propaganda  social- 
ists have  favored  Germany  on  the  ground  that  the 
German  government  is  more  friendly  to  the  working 
people  than  the  free  government  of  America! 
Patriotism  has  persisted,  but  it  is  German  and  not 
American  patriotism.  Those  who  have  been  sus- 
pected of  being  leaders  of  American  patriotism  have 
been  excluded  from  socialistic  groups.  Organized 
socialism  in  America  has  turned  itself  into  anti- 
Americanism,  condemning  a  war  of  national  self- 
protection  and  pleading  for  peace  in  speech  self -be- 
trayed by  its  German  accent.  The  situation  is  too 
plain  to  need  argument.  The  loyal  socialists  of  the 
United  States  are  those  who  have  broken  with  the 
socialistic  party  because  they  have  seen  the  danger 
which  German  success  threatens  to  a  democratic 
movement.  The  bolsheviki  may  be  sincere;  the 
German  socialist  of  America  is  disloyal. 


4O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

This  sinister  situation  can  be  controlled  by  the 
rise  of  a  genuine  patriotism  which  discriminates  be- 
tween a  nation  where  socialism  is  not  democratic, 
and  nations  that  further  democracy  without  being 
socialistic. 

v-  That  international  crimes  have  been  wrought  in 
the  name  of  nationalism  must  be  admitted.  In  the 
name  of  patriotism  strong  nations  have  oppressed 
the  weak.  National  pride  has  given  countenance  to 
national  aggression  and  brutality.  National  ego- 
tism made  Continental  Europe  an  armed  camp  and 
drenched  the  earth  with  the  blood  of  helpless  peoples. 
All  this  and  more  must  be  admitted  as  legitimate 
charges  against  nationalism  and  patriotism  of  a  cer- 
tain sort. 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  nationalism  and 
patriotism  of  another  sort  are  of  necessity  evil.  All 
intelligent  patriots  must  have  sympathy  with  many 
of  the  ideas  which  socialist  internationalism  seeks  to 
embody.  But  the  central  aim  of  socialism,  the 
world- wide  solidarity  of  the  proletariat  and  the  abo- 
lition of  national  ties,  is  a  reform  against  history. 
The  chief  elements  of  modern  civilization  have  been 
very  intimately  connected  with  national  groups. 
Civilization  is  a  compound  of  nation  achievements. 
Each  nation  —  using  that  term  in  a  broad  sense  — 


THE   MORAL   VALUES    OF    PATRIOTISM  4! 

has  been  a  laboratory  in  which  definite  cultural  ideas 
have  been  developed.  It  is  a  commonplace  that 
Egypt,  Judea,  Greece,  and  Rome,  each  in  its  creative 
national  epoch,  perfected  some  cultural  element 
which  social  evolution  has  incorporated  and  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  the  entire  world.  Modern  na- 
tions just  as  truly  have  their  contributions  to  make 
to  world-life.  Without  the  national  life  the  rights 
of  the  individual  now  so  outstanding  in  democratic 
states  would  never  have  come  into  existence.  Per- 
sonal liberty  is  impossible  without  the  protection  of 
the  state.  Differences  in  state  life  enable  citizens 
of  one  nation  to  possess  rights  which  are  forbidden 
to  citizens  of  another  nation.  If  it  had  possessed  no 
national  life,  how  would  it  have  been  possible  for  the 
American  state  to  work  out  its  characteristic  con- 
tributions to  human  welfare  —  the  identification  of 
citizenship  with  the  state,  the  right  of  private  initia- 
tive, the  equality  of  opportunity,  the  elevation  of 
women  into  full  rights  of  persons,  the  extension 
of  education,  the  assurance  of  religious  liberty,  the 
growing  recognition  of  economic  freedom  and  self- 
direction  of  the  working-classes,  the  protection  of 
weaker  nations,  and  the  regard  for  international 
law  and  arbitration?  These  inestimably  precious 
advantages  have  been  made  possible  by  national  de- 


42  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

mocracy.  To  expect  a  reconstruction  of  human  life 
into  a  world-state  is  to  confess  subjection  to  imprac- 
ticable dreams.  The  fate  of  Russian  radicalism  in 
its  dealing  with  Germany  is  a  warning  against  en- 
thusiasm for  paper  Utopias. 

Unless  history  is  about  to  reverse  its  tendencies 
it  is  the  nation  upon  which  we  must  build  the  future. 
Universal  human  welfare  will  result  from  cooper- 
ative nationalism.  Great  empires  have  not  been 
possible  since  the  rise  of  nations.  The  Roman  Em- 
pire was  able  to  produce  an  extraordinarily  efficient 
type  of  internal  organization  and  to  continue  through 
centuries  of  warfare  because  it  did  not  have  to  face 
the  problems  of  creative  nations.  The  peoples  it 
controlled  had  no  further  contribution  to  make  to 
history,  no  traditions  for  which  their  citizens  were 
ready  to  die.  It  was  better  for  them  to  enjoy  the 
Roman  peace  as  subjects  than  to  attempt  revolt,  for 
they  had  no  national  ideals  worth  fighting  for. 
Only  in  the  case  of  the  little  Jewish  state  was  the 
Roman  Empire  threatened  by  a  serious  revolt. 
That  is  to  say,  there  was  no  worth  ful  patriotism  be- 
cause the  nations  had  ceased  to  have  the  power  to 
make  contributions  to  human  progress. 

When  one  compares  the  Roman  Empire  with  the 
modern  world  a  difference  is  at  once  apparent.  It 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  43 

was  threatened  by  no  violated  nationalism.  Na- 
poleon at  one  time  controlled  practically  the  entire 
Continent  of  Europe.  But  he  was  attempting  to 
control  national  powers.  His  empire  was  short- 
lived because  the  inner  forces  of  national  life  were 
expansive  and  yearly  increased  the  strain  upon  the 
military  unity  and  control  which  he  imposed.  Na- 
tional life  was  sooner  or  later  bound  to  express  itself 
in  national  explosions. 

The  same  thing  is  more  emphatically  true  now. 
If  it  were  conceivable  that  Germany  could  establish 
a  military  empire  like  that  of  Napoleon,  the  rise  of 
national  patriotisms  would  sooner  or  later  usher  in 
a  period  of  rebellion,  war,  and  the  reemergence  of 
national  units.  We  can  already  see  this  in  the  case 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire,  where  the  Poles, 
Czechs,  and  Jugo-Slavs  are  struggling  for  national 
self-existence.  They  can,  of  course,  within  certain 
limits  be  restrained  and  coerced,  for  they  have  no 
national  organization  to  give  direction  to  ethnic 
loyalty.  But  an  empire  composed  of  conquered  na- 
tions would  compress  national  spirit  to  the  point 
where  violent  disintegration  would  certainly  result. 
Militarism  can  maintain  supremacy  in  a  modern 
world  only  as  long  as  its  masters  are  without  the  pale 
of  the  inevitable  development  of  popular  rights. 


44  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

A  German  world-state  would  fall  like  any  social 
anachronism. 

Admitting,  therefore,  that  there  are  dangers  in 
patriotism  and  that  nations  are  as  yet  competitive 
groups,  we  are  all  the  more  concerned  with  the  pur- 
poses and  ideals  of  nations.  The  danger  of  patriot- 
ism to  the  world-order  lies  in  the  sort  of  policies  a 
nation  represents.  If  nationality  and  patriotism  are 
to  be  identified  with  German  theories  of  the  state,  a 
German  national  loyalty  will  result.  Nationality 
and  patriotism  are  then  undoubted  evils  which  ought 
to  be  remedied.  But  a  nation  composed  of  persons 
who  regard  national  welfare  as  consistent  with  the 
welfare  of  other  nations  is  not  a  curse.  Patriotism 
that  prompts  a  nation  to  protect  weaker  nations  from 
their  stronger  neighbors  and  seeks  to  lead  in  co- 
operative effort  for  the  welfare  of  humanity  is  the 
promise  of  a  new  and  better  world-order. 

Can  patriotism  thus  be  made  a  cooperative  rather 
than  a  belligerent  virtue  ?  Or  in  the  age  which  is  to 
come  after  the  war  must  we  expect  a  development 
of  militaristic  patriotism?  Will  the  defeat  of  Ger- 
many mean  what  the  success  of  Germany  would 
mean  ?  Is  the  world  to  become  a  group  of  mutually 
antagonistic  political  units  each  seeking  its  own  ad- 
vantage at  the  expense  of  others?  Such  questions 


THE    MORAL   VALUES    OF    PATRIOTISM  45 

strike  through  economics  and  politics  into  the  sub- 
stratum of  moral  character  of  the  nations  them- 
selves. On  their  answers  largely  hangs  our  faith  in 
the  future. 

II 

To  estimate  the  relative  dangers  and  advantages 
of  patriotism  we  must  deal  with  historical  tendencies 
rather  than  academic  definitions.  Only  by  a  sur- 
vey of  human  experience  can  we  clearly  appreciate 
the  worth  of  the  patriotism  of  democracy. 

Patriotism  as  a  loyalty  to  national  ideals  is  they 
product  of  the  rise  of  modern  nations.  In  the 
Roman  Empire  there  was,  it  is  true,  an  advance  to- 
ward this  conception  in  which  the  state  rather  than 
the  monarch  was  the  center  of  loyalty.  To  be  a 
Roman  citizen  was  to  be  something  more  than  a 
subject  of  the  Roman  emperor.  It  was  to  share  in 
legal  privileges  and  to  become  a  partner  in  a  history 
that  had  given  birth  to  law  and  order  as  well  as  to 
military  conquests.  In  this  the  national  pride  of 
the  Roman  was  different  from  that  of  the  Greek. 
Greece,  although  in  Aristotle  producing  the  great 
philosopher  of  the  state  and  in  the  Macedonian  Alex- 
ander the  first  man  that  dreamed  of  an  empire  more 
than  military,  had  no  collective  memory  or  hope  of 


46  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

a  united  Greek  nation.  In  Greece  as  in  the  Eastern 
world  men  were  prouder  of  their  cities  than  of  their 
country.  The  Athenian  and  the  Spartan,  the 
Theban  and  the  Corinthian,  were  ready  to  say  with 
the  man  of  Tarsus,  "  I  am  a  citizen  of  no  mean 
city."  But  the  one  no  more  than  the  other  could 
recall  an  imperial  solidarity  like  that  which  the  genius 
of  Rome  bequeathed  to  the  Mediterranean  basin. 
In  this  municipal  patriotism  there  were  many  things 
which  were  noble,  and  there  were  incentives  to  self- 
devotion;  but  the  failure  to  achieve  a  Greek  nation 
prevented  that  intense  love  of  a  national  entity  which 
characterized  Roman  literature  and  Roman  expan- 
sion. The  Greeks  formed  colonies  which  had  a 
high  degree  of  unity  of  culture,  but  no  national  nor 
imperial  unity.  The  Roman  colony  was  a  part  of 
the  Roman  state.  The  Roman  citizen  in  Asia  or 
Gaul,  in  Egypt  or  Britain,  was  a  member  of  an 
ever-present  state  quick  to  defend  its  citizens  from 
danger  and  to  punish  those  who  injured  them  in 
person  or  estate.  This  sense  of  solidarity  was  radi- 
cally different  from  the  old  tribal  unity  with  its 
blood  feuds.  It  was  a  genuinely  political  concep- 
tion. 

But  it  was  possessed  of  an  inherent  weakness. 
It  could  not  inspire  national  self-sacrifice.     In  the 


THE   MORAL   VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  47 

days  of  the  Republic  Roman  citizens  were  ready  to 
sacrifice  and  die  for  their  expanding  city-state. 
Under  the  Empire  they  hired  soldiers  to  defend  their 
frontiers  and  lived  securely  in  a  disarmed  world. 
The  literature  of  even  the  Golden  Age  of  the  Roman 
Empire  is  singularly  lacking  in  that  virile  note  that 
sounds  in  the  literature  of  modern  states.  Vergil 
appreciated  the  Golden  Age  which  had  come,  and 
uttered  his  beautiful  panegyrics  upon  Augustus. 
His  successors  were  equally  thankful  for  the  peace 
which  the  world  could  hardly  understand,  but  even 
in  the  philosophy  of  men  like  Seneca  no  note  of 
sacrifice,  no  appeal  for  political  reforms,  gives  seri- 
ousness to  their  complacency.  In  the  letters  of  a 
cosmopolitan  like  Pliny  admiration  for  the  emperor 
and  a  business-like  discussion  of  administration  give 
no  hint  of  a  readiness  to  befriend  the  ideals  of  a 
state  beyond  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  obligations 
to  maintain  order  and  forestall  anything  like  social 
discontent. 

One  cannot  help  feeling  that  the  history  of  the 
later  Empire  is  the  outcome  of  this  attitude  of  mind. 
The  social  organization  of  the  Empire  based  on  the 
labor  of  slaves,  its  unwieldy  extent,  the  diversity  of 
component  peoples  lacking  the  unifying  influence  of 
suffrage,  had  within  it  no  singleness  of  soul  which 


48  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

could  lead  its  citizens  to  a  united  defense  of  its  insti- 
tutions. Those  centuries  of  disintegration  in  which 
the  East  split  from  the  West,  and  the  West  was  dis- 
membered by  the  incoming  of  hordes  of  armed  immi- 
grants, might  have  been  foretold  by  the  absence  of  a 
genuine  patriotism.  Pride  in  one's  country  based 
upon  the  achievements  of  a  government  in  which 
one  has  no  part  is  a  poor  substitute  for  a  loyalty  to 
ideals  which  a  nation  as  a  whole  is  believed  to  em- 
body and  champion. 

So  it  came  to  pass  that  patriotism  even  in  the 
Roman  sense  of  the  term  disappeared  from  the  earth 
during  the  centuries  which  followed  the  barbarian 
invasions.  Europe  reverted  to  the  older  local  and 
personal  loyalty.  The  feudal  social  order  that 
emerged  in  Western  Europe  had  little  of  true  patriot- 
ism in  it.  There  were,  it  is  true,  a  romantic  chivalry, 
the  quick  response  of  vassal  and  villein  to  the  sup- 
port of  their  lord,  but  in  the  place  of  a  nation  there 
were  countless  groups,  most  of  them  small,  in  which 
life  centered  around  a  feudal  lord,  and  social  solidar- 
ity found  its  most  effective  expression  in  the  respect 
paid  the  honor  of  superiors.  The  so-called  Holy 
Roman  Empire  which  hovered  over  this  feudal  con- 
fusion never  was  able  to  evoke  anything  like  patri- 
otic allegiance.  Its  theory  left  no  outlook  for  citi- 


THE   MORAL   VALUES    OF    PATRIOTISM  49 

zenship,  for  whatever  authority  it  claimed  descended 
upon  it  from  heaven  instead  of  coming  to  its  em- 
peror from  citizens  loyal  to  a  state.  True,  there 
were  the  beginnings  of  ethnic  solidarities,  but  the 
prevailing  political  note  even  in  the  emerging  middle 
class  was  municipal  rather  than  national.  There 
was  no  Italy,  or  Germany,  or  France,  or,  until  the 
middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  Spain.  There 
were  kingdoms  which,  had  the  course  of  history  run 
differently,  might  have  developed  into  nations;  but 
states,  and  in  consequence  patriotism,  in  the  modern 
sense  of  the  word,  were  lacking. 

In  one  state  only  can  there  be  fairly  said  to  have 
been  a  steady  development  of  a  national  patriotism, 
and  that  state  was  England.  The  reason  for  this 
distinctive  characteristic  is  not  difficult  to  find.  In 
England  the  people  as  such  gradually  gained  a  recog- 
nizable share  in  the  government  of  their  land.  The 
thirteenth  century  for  a  while  gave  promise  of  a 
constitutional  monarchy.  The  fact  that  this  was 
lost  in  the  struggle  between  the  feudal  houses  of 
England  and  in  the  all  but  complete  autocracy  of 
the  Tudors  could  only  serve  to  check  the  develop- 
ment. Englishmen  had  rights  as  Englishmen.  The 
English  people  gradually  grew  into  the  possession 
of  a  national  consciousness.  And  as  the  little  island 


5O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

kingdom  fought  for  its  very  existence  against  the 
rich  and  powerful  new  states  on  the  Continent, 
there  developed  an  attitude  of  mind  which  was  more 
than  the  pride  of  the  Spaniard  in  Spain.  It  was  a 
sense  of  national  solidarity,  of  national  future,  and 
of  national  duty.  As  compared  with  this  English 
patriotism  the  contemporary  loyalty  of  Frenchmen 
and  the  almost  tribal  loyalty  of  the  innumerable 
German  states  appear  of  a  different  order.  Na- 
tionalities grew  on  the  Continent,  but  it  was  the 
nineteenth  century  that  evolved  the  quality  of 
patriotism  which  marks  the  constitutional  states  of 
Italy  and  France.  In  Russia  the  serfs  had  no  na- 
tion to  which  they  could  be  loyal,  and  the  Little 
Father  at  Petrograd  was  an  all  but  mythical  figure, 
loyalty  to  whom  was  hardly  more  than  a  survival  of 
the  tribal  loyalty  of  the  past.  In  Germany  there 
were  Prussians,  Saxons,  and  Bavarians.  It  re- 
quired time  and  the  blood-and-iron  policy  of  Bis- 
marck to  bring  into  actual  expression  a  public  mind 
that  could  in  any  true  sense  be  called  German. 

When  to-day's  nations  emerged,  religious  life  was 
identified  with  this  new  national  patriotism.  The 
reformation  produced  national  churches  which 
served  to  intensify  the  exclusiveness  of  government. 
Religious  liberty  was  all  but -unknown.  The  citi- 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  5! 

zens  of  England  had  their  state-church,  and  the 
same  was  true  of  Scotchmen,  Irishmen,  Welshmen, 
Prussians,  Saxons,  Swedes,  Norwegians,  and  Danes. 
That  the  state-church  tended  to  produce  a  national 
patriotism  undoubtedly  is  true,  but  it  also  tended  to 
limit  this  nationalism  both  in  boundary  and  in 
outlook.  The  citizen  was  required  to  show  loy- 
alty, not  only  to  his  sovereign,  but  also  to  his 
church. 

The  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  furnish 
abundant  illustration  of  patriotism  born  of  egoistic 
nationalism.  In  that  century  it  is  difficult  to  dis- 
cover among  the  nations  any  dominant  sense  of  mis- 
sion of  service  to  the  world.  It  was  a  period  of 
national  expansion.  Each  nation  regarded  war  as  a 
desirable  means  of  national  growth.  Conquest  was 
regarded  without  discussion  as  legitimate.  Each 
nation  grew  by  taking  from  other  nations  such  terri- 
tory and  population  as  it  was  able  to  win.  The 
boundaries  of  different  states  from  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  constantly  changing.  A  strongly  central- 
ized power  like  France  was  able  to  expand  at  the 
expense  of  the  smaller  states  about  it.  The  policy 
of  Louis  XIV  was  that  of  self-aggrandizement. 
Wars  were  made  by  a  ruling  family  in  much  the 


52  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

same  way  as  a  modern  business  house  undertakes  to 
absorb  the  trade  of  its  competitors.  The  idea  of 
international  law,  although  it  had  begun  to  take 
shape  in  the  works  of  men  like  Grotius,  possessed 
little  or  no  influence.  Witness  the  strange  negotia- 
tions between  England  and  the  Dutch  Republic. 
The  only  loyalty  which  could  be  expected  of  French- 
men and  Prussians  was  that  of  obedience  to  masters 
over  whom  they  had  no  control.  They  were  cannon- 
fodder  and  tillers  of  the  soil.  The  absence  of  con- 
stitutional limitations  upon  the  sovereign  made  it 
quite  impossible  for  peoples,  even  had  they  possessed 
any  definite  sense  of  a  common  human  duty,  to  ex- 
press their  will.  Prussians  and  Frenchmen  could 
be  proud  of  their  victories,  but  loyalty  raised  no 
question  of  national  morality. 

What  was  true  of  France  and  Prussia  was  true 
of  every  other  nation  in  Europe.  Even  in  England, 
where  the  people  had  some  share  in  the  government, 
the  idea  of  a  morality  which  was  superior  to  the 
ambitions  of  national  policy  in  dealing  with  the  rest 
of  the  world  was  not  evident.  The  Commonwealth 
under  Cromwell,  though  it  had  more  theology,  had 
no  higher  sense  of  national  obligation  than  the  abso- 
lute monarchy  of  the  Bourbons.  Yet  the  beginnings 
of  a  higher  patriotism  are  to  be  discerned  even  in 


THE    MORAL   VALUES   OF    PATRIOTISM  53 

these  centuries.  For  it  was  then  that  America  began 
to  make  its  contribution  to  national  idealism. 

The  organization  of  English  colonies  served  to 
lay  the  foundations  for  a  broader  conception  of  na- 
tional mission.  Although  the  colonies  themselves 
were  jealous  of  each  other,  and  in  some  cases  en- 
gaged in  actual  war,  there  were  developing  within 
them  moral  elements  destined  to  lay  the  foundations 
both  in  precedent  and  in  theory  for  an  extension  of 
moral  sanctions  to  national  policies.  A  new  and 
better  patriotism  was  inevitable. 

Why  the  American  colonies  should  be  the  pioneers 
in  this  new  field  is  not  hard  to  discover.  They  had 
been  established  in  large  measure  by  Englishmen  who 
had  come  to  the  new  world  for  the  enjoyment  of 
what  they  believed  to  be  rights.  At  home  they 
found  such  enjoyment  limited  by  the  traditions  and 
the  institutions  of  a  state  in  which  the  power  of  a 
king,  aristocracy,  and  church  were  only  partially 
limited  by  the  popular  will.  The  rights  of  English- 
men, however,  had  already  begun  to  acquire  a  real 
content.  When,  as  Englishmen  sought  the  enjoy- 
ment of  still  other  rights,  they  were  transferred  to 
America  they  rapidly  tended  to  become  regarded  as 
the  natural  rights  of  men.  The  rights  of  English- 
men gave  rise  to  the  doctrines  of  natural  rights. 


54  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

It  seems  to  be  true  that  when  an  idea  of  rights  is 
evolved  by  some  pioneering  society  it  comes  as  an 
expansion  of  rights  already  partly  enjoyed.  To  ex- 
pand such  rights  was  the  aim  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. The  first  stage  in  America  and  England  — 
the  only  lands  in  which  popular  rights  were  in  any 
real  sense  indigenous, —  was  that  of  a  struggle  to 
acquire  and  enjoy  privileges  which  were  properly 
the  people's,  but  in  actual  practice  had  been  monopo- 
lized by  privileged  classes.  When,  as  within  the 
American  colonies,  there  was  a  practical  universality 
of  such  rights  as  properly  belong  to  Englishmen, 
without  the  sense  of  exclusion  from  the  enjoyment 
of  other  rights  enjoyed  by  privileged  classes,  the 
idea  of  rights  belonging  to  men  as  men,  was  not  slow 
in  finding  expression.  Such  development,  though 
aided  by  the  popular  philosophy  of  the  day,  found 
largest  opportunity  for  political  expression  in  the 
American  colonies.  The  compact  made  by  the  hum- 
ble Pilgrims  on  the  Mayflower  was  in  germ  a  modern 
democracy.  But  the  rights  which  this  compact  ex- 
pressed were  those  then  already  enjoyed,  though 
only  in  part,  by  Englishmen.  And  what  was  thus 
expressed  in  something  like  actual  constitutional 
form  in  the  American  colonies  was  at  the  same  time 
developing  in  the  political  thought  of  England  and 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  55 

was  moving  over  into  the  field  of  French  philosophy. 
That  is  to  say,  the  idea  of  rights  which  had  been 
developing  in  English  history  in  actual  experience 
was  given  a  theoretical  basis  and  expansion  by  Eng- 
lish philosophers,  like  Hooker  and  Locke,  and  by 
their  followers  on  the  Continent.  Political  practice 
and  social  theory  reen  forced  each  other  and  made 
possible  the  era  of  revolutions  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Wherever  during  that 
period  any  people  found  itself  capable  of  breaking 
down  the  wall  of  partition  between  those  who  had 
rights  and  those  who  sought  for  them,  liberty  and 
political  equality  became  identified  with  national 
mission.  Here  was  a  new  patriotism.  This  was 
particularly  true  in  the  case  of  the  United  States  of 
America  and  France,  the  two  countries  in  which  a 
privileged  class  was  declared  to  be  contrary  to  the 
fundamental  nature  of  the  nation. 


Ill 

It  is  well,  however,  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  the 
difference  between  the  American  Revolution  and  the 
French  Revolution.  In  America  the  Revolution 
consisted  in  the  break  with  English  political  control. 
It  involved  no  social  change  or  destruction  of  politi- 


56  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

cal  ideals  in  the  colonies  themselves.  The  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  was  a  codification  and  in- 
stitutionalizing of  political  and  social  precedents  al- 
ready in  existence.  The  right  of  the  people  to  con- 
trol the  monarch  was  already  recognized  in  English 
politics,  although  within  a  limited  field.  The  sub- 
stitution of  popular  for  royal  sovereignty  in  America 
had  practically  been  accomplished  before  1776,  and 
the  achievement  of  political  independence  involved 
no  destruction  of  the  idea  of  sovereignty  which  thir- 
teen political  entities  transferred  to  the  Federal 
Union  formed  in  1787.  The  thirteen  individual 
patriotisms  were  not  altogether  destroyed,  but  sup- 
plemented, and  by  the  establishment  of  the  indivisi- 
bility of  the  Federal  Union  in  the  war  of  1861-65 
they  became  fused  in  a  genuinely  national  patriot- 
ism. 

In  France  on  the  other  hand  there  was  of  neces- 
sity a  destruction  of  political  and  social  institutions. 
The  new  national  consciousness  involved  a  reorgan- 
ization of  the  entire  national  life.  Feudal  privileges 
and  the  monarchy  itself  were  abolished.  The  lands 
of  the  church  were  nationalized  and  distributed 
among  the  citizens.  The  mass  of  Frenchmen  who 
had  had  no  share  in  the  government  were  given  par- 
ticipation in  new  national  life  through  suffrage. 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  57 

Utterly  new  political  institutions  were  established, 
destroyed,  and  reestablished  without  continuing  an 
earlier  course  of  constitutional  development. 

In  both  the  American  colonies  and  France  the 
unification  of  a  genuinely  national  spirit  was  accom- 
panied by  disorders,  and  in  France  because  of  inex- 
perience in  self-government  by  great  suffering.  But 
in  both  alike  a  political  liberty  purchased  at  the  ex- 
pense of  revolution  gave  to  the  people  a  sense  of  na- 
tional mission  which  has  never  been  lost.  They 
were  patriots  who  were  loyal  to  a  nation  that  had 
ideals  that  other  nations  needed.  Both  felt  that  they 
possessed  the  duty  of  inducing  other  nations  to  es- 
tablish for  themselves  the  state  of  affairs  which 
revolution  had  brought.  The  fact  that  the  new  na- 
tion of  the  United  States  was  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  world  by  an  ocean  on  the  east  and  an 
unexplored  continent  on  the  west  served  to  prevent 
any  attempt  to  spread  the  gospel  of  liberty  by  force 
of  arms.  But  the  general  social  law  holds  true  that 
a  creative  social  mind  finds  its  expression  at  the  point 
where  a  nation  has  developed  its  largest  efficiency. 
The  American  colonies  never  developed  a  large  mili- 
tary efficiency,  but  did  possess  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  a  very  decided  commercial  and  religious 
efficiency.  Thus  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  the 


58  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

new  liberty  found  expression  largely  in  the  field  of 
commerce  and  the  church  and  the  closely  allied  field 
of  education ;  and  the  new  nation  entered  almost  im- 
mediately upon  that  particular  type  of  development 
which  resulted  in  the  United  States  of  to-day.  Its 
patriotism,  therefore,  while  it  made  America  always 
ready  to  recognize  similar  movements  in  European 
countries,  never  included  the  duty  of  the  extension 
of  liberty  to  other  lands  by  force  of  arms.  Patriot- 
ism, in  the  sense  of  loyalty  to  a  national  mission, 
was  unmilitary  and  throughout  the  entire  history  of 
the  United  States  has  opposed  military  establish- 
ments and  military  preparedness  commensurate  with 
the  growth  of  national  power.  In  this  sense  it  is 
undoubtedly  historically  correct  to  say  that  mili- 
tarism and  patriotism  in  the  United  States  have  been 
and  are  two  mutually  antagonistic  conceptions. 

In  France  on  the  other  hand  the  necessity  of  de- 
fending the  results  of  the  Revolution  which  had 
brought  about  the  destruction  of  the  social  order 
led  to  the  development  of  military  efficiency.  The 
period  during  which  the  nation  re  founded  itself  was 
marked,  not  by  the  development  of  commerce  and 
religious  liberty,  but  by  the  necessary  rise  of  mili- 
tary leaders.  A  sense  of  national  mission  involved 
the  extension  of  constitutional  rights  to  other  na- 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF    PATRIOTISM  59 

tions  by  force  of  conquest,  and  Napoleon  was  its 
natural  fruitage.  The  early  campaigns  of  the 
French  under  the  leadership  of  Napoleon  were  avow- 
edly for  the  purpose  of  extending  liberty  to  other 
people.  The  fact  that  such  a  crusade  resulted  in  an 
empire  should  not  obscure  the  fact  that  the  success 
of  Napoleon  did  result  in  the  extension  of  new 
legal  and  political  conceptions  upon  the  Continent 
of  Europe.  But  the  outcome  was  an  increase  of 
military  preparations.  The  inevitable  result  of  re- 
liance upon  military  supremacy  was  soon  apparent 
in  Europe,  and  in  the  place  of  the  peaceful  and  con- 
tagious spread  of  political  liberty  there  followed  the 
subjection  of  European  states  to  a  military  empire. 
Patriotism,  which  at  the  start  among  the  French  was 
an  unquestionable  devotion  to  the  vision  of  free 
peoples,  was  transformed  into  a  short-lived  loyalty 
to  a  military  state.  This  state  fell  in  a  few  years  be- 
cause its  very  success  had  induced  a  new  group  of 
national  patriotisms,  each  one  of  which  was  given 
its  content  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  peoples 
whom  a  common  danger  had  aroused  to  a  new  sense 
of  national  significance  and  a  new  effort  for  national 
self -protection.  This  new  patriotism  overcame  the 
mighty  attempt  to  revert  to  military  autocracy. 
These  two  illustrations  might  suffice  to  bear  out 


60  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

the  fact  that  with  the  period  of  revolutions  we  enter 
upon  an  era  in  which  there  emerged  genuine  patriot- 
isms in  the  sense  of  loyalty  to  nations  each  with  its 
own  particular  mission  in  life.  Other  illustrations 
might  easily  be  found,  but  of  them  all  it  is  necessary 
to  mention  only  the  outstanding  instances  of  Eng- 
land. There  the  extension  of  the  idea  of  the  rights 
of  Englishmen  found  its  particular  expression  at  the 
point  of  England's  greatest  historical  significance, 
namely  the  development  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment. Since  the  eighteenth  century  England  has 
never  undertaken  to  expand  by  the  conquest  of 
European  or  other  politically  self -sufficient  states. 
It  has  established  colonies  and  gained  the  control  of 
states  which,  lacking  efficient  government,  furnished 
commercial  opportunities.  As  a  result,  during  the 
last  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  English  people  have 
organized  great  democracies  in  Canada,  Australia, 
and  latterly  in  Africa.  Its  sense  of  national  mission 
has  been  at  once  that  of  loyalty  to  self-government 
in  its  colonies  and  administrative  betterment  of  peo- 
ples who  were  not  possessed  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
traditions.  But  even  among  these  latter  peoples,  as 
in  the  case  of  India,  there  has  been  a  greater  or  less 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  con- 
quered territories  to  an  increasing  share  in  the  ad- 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  6l 

ministration  of  their  affairs.  The  patriotism  of 
Englishmen,  therefore,  like  that  of  Americans  and 
Frenchmen,  has  recognized  that  their  country  has  a 
role  to  play  in  history  looking  toward  the  extension 
of  the  rights  of  the  individual.  The  loyalty  of  the 
Englishman  to  his  country  has  been  expressed,  it  is 
true,  more  than  once  in  some  form  of  imperialism, 
but  this  imperialism  itself  has  carried  in  its  heart 
something  vastly  more  than  superimposed  sover- 
eignty or  the  enforced  subjection  of  non-English 
people  to  English  social  ideals.  The  development  of 
democracy  in  England  has  been  steady,  and  with  it 
has  gone  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  emancipation 
of  women,  the  extension  of  education  and  suffrage, 
and  the  socializing  of  governmental  functions.  And 
with  this  developing  democracy  has  gone  a  deep- 
ening of  the  British  sense  of  national  mission  to 
protect  weak  nations  and  deal  fairly  with  rivals. 

IV 

It  was  in  America  that  the  new  patriotism  ceased 
to  be  ecclesiastical.  Even  in  England  the  rise  of 
religious  independency  was  for  generations  handi- 
capped by  the  identification  of  national  and  ecclesi- 
astical interests.  The  Act  of  Conformity  and  the 


62  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

entire  policy  of  the  Stuart  family  served,  however, 
to  intensify  the  struggle  between  national  loyalty 
and  ecclesiastical  uniformity.  In  no  other  nation 
was  there  a  similar  struggle. 

How  rapid  would  have  been  the  rise  of  national 
constitutionalism  had  religious  independence  ad- 
vanced more  readily  in  England,  it  is  hard  to  say ;  but 
as  it  was,  the  English  colonies  freed  patriotism  from 
subjection  to  ecclesiastical  control.  True,  with  the 
exception  of  the  thirteen  American  colonies,  English 
patriotism  has  developed  into  that  of  a  cooperative 
world-state.  And  it  is  not  beyond  the  range  of  pos- 
sibility that  this  sense  of  British  solidarity,  which 
to-day  characterizes  Canada  and  Australasia,  might 
have  continued  in  America  if  English  toryism  had 
not  been  given  temporary  power  by  the  German 
junkerism  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  But  as  history 
developed,  the  English  people  in  America  first  de- 
veloped a  patriotism  which  was  genuinely  national 
and  religiously  free,  developing  its  own  moral  inhi- 
bitions and  sanctions  unrestrained  by  state-churches. 

The  nineteenth  century  saw  this  patriotism  first 
worked  out  in  the  laboratory  of  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
stitutional history  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
spread  throughout  the  world.  France  after  the 
Revolution  increasingly  embodied  this  idea  of  per- 


THE   MORAL   VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  63 

sonal  liberty  in  its  national  ideals,  but  until  the  last 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  no  other  great  nation 
included  within  its  patriotism  similar  ideals.  Then 
for  the  first  time  in  history  there  was  to  be  seen  the 
emergence  of  a  democratic  patriotism.  Under  Vic- 
tor Emmanuel,  Italy  joined  the  founders  of  the  new 
epoch,  and  in  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  and 
through  the  twentieth  century  nation  after  nation 
has  developed  in  Europe  a  patriotism  of  like  charac- 
ter. Japan  adopted  constitutional  government  and 
religious  liberty;  China  under  the  pressure  of  the 
world-spirit  cast  off  its  monarchy  and  has  begun  the 
development  of  a  patriotism  that  includes  a  national 
ideal  as  distinguished  from  the  older  pride  in  a  past. 
Only  in  Germany,  in  Austria-Hungary,  and  in  Tur- 
key has  the  old  type  of  patriotism,  which  consists 
in  loyalty  to  a  divinely  established  irresponsible  mon- 
archy, persisted  without  serious  modifications. 

It  is  not  of  liberty  that  the  German  patriot  boasts, 
but  of  his  KultuTy  defended  and  enforced  by  arms. 
And  when  Kultur  is  described  by  its  evangelists  it  is 
seen  to  be  a  patriotism  centering  about  a  state  relying 
upon  military  power  rather  than  regard  for  personal 
rights. 


64  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

V 

Thus  in  our  day  there  appear  two  types  of  patriot- 
ism, that  of  democracy  and  that  of  autocracy.  By 
their  morals  as  by  their  history  shall  they  be  judged ! 

The  patriotism  of  the  democratic  power  has  never 
been  militaristic  and  has  taken  up  the  present  con- 
flict with  loathing.  The  patriotism  of  the  German 
is  essentially  militaristic  and  regards  war  as  an 
integral  part  of  a  foreign  policy.  The  patriotism  of 
democracy  has  never  demanded  that  its  government 
should  conquer  lands  possessed  of  settled  national 
life.  It  has  respected  the  rights  of  organized  na- 
tions and  has  increasingly  recognized  the  fact  that 
loyalty  to  one's  country  involves  the  recognition  of 
the  rights  of  other  nations.  The  patriotism  of  Ger- 
many has  excluded  all  such  recognition  and  has  cen- 
tered itself  vigorously  upon  aggressive  conquest  and 
an  immoral  disregard  of  other  nations'  wellbeing. 
Justice,  its  leaders  declare,  is  a  civic  virtue.  "  It  is 
foolish,"  says  Karl  Peters  (1915),  "to  talk  of  the 
rights  of  others;  it  is  foolish  to  speak  of  a  justice 
that  should  hinder  us  from  doing  to  others  what  we 
ourselves  do  not  wish  to  suffer  from  them."  The 
demand  of  such  a  patriotism  has  been  for  the  ex- 
tension of  national  boundaries,  the  appropriation  of 


THE    MORAL   VALUES    OF    PATRIOTISM  65 

other  nations'  territory,  the  laying  of  crushing  in- 
demnities. The  patriotism  of  democracy  has  sought 
to  extend  constitutional  rights  even  to  those  less  or- 
ganized peoples  over  whom  its  power  has  extended ; 
the  patriotism  of  autocracy  has  subordinated  per- 
sonal rights  to  the  power  of  a  state,  deriving  its  au- 
thority from  no  other  source  than  inheritance  given 
sanction  by  an  appeal  to  a  German  God.  When  the 
democratic  patriotism  has  turned  to  God,  it  is  to  the 
God  who  rules  over  other  nations,  who  is  the  God 
of  law  and  justice.  When  the  patriotism  of  Ger- 
many has  turned  to  God,  it  has  been  to  a  national 
god  whose  chief  aim  is  to  inspire  the  courage  of 
those  who  draw  the  flashing  sword  and  give  comfort 
to  those  who  have  perished  in  the  extension  of  na- 
tional power  and  the  brutal  imposition  upon  other 
countries  of  its  own  national  civilization. 

Their  conception  of  national  obligation  and  mis- 
sion has  further  given  to  the  patriotism  of  free  peo- 
ples the  conviction  that  the  relations  of  nations  must 
ultimately  be  based  upon  mutual  recognition  of  na- 
tional rights  and  national  individuality. 

Such  a  development  of  international  feeling  was 
inevitable  in  democracies.  A  patriotism  which 
recognizes  the  rights  of  one's  fellow-citizens  is  slow 
to  coerce  the  citizens  of  other  nations.  Desire  for 


66  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

conquest  may  almost  be  said  to  be  inversely  as  the 
extent  of  a  nation's  democratization.  The  relations 
between  Great  Britain,  France,  and  the  United  States 
is  a  striking  illustration  of  this  fact.  For  more  than 
a  hundred  years  these  nations,  despite  the  machina- 
tions of  those  who  desired  to  see  them  engaged  in  a 
mutually  fatal  struggle,  have  been  at  peace.  By  this 
token  can  we  see  that  democracies  do  not  deliberately 
purpose  to  prey  upon  their  neighbors.  These  na- 
tions have  argued,  quarreled,  and  occasionally  threat- 
ened each  other.  But  they  have  preferred  arbitra- 
tion to  war. 

How  far  the  desire  to  establish  some  other  basis 
than  war  for  the  settlement  of  international  dis- 
putes has  spread  can  be  seen  by  a  study  of  interna- 
tional arbitration.  Up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
in  1914  there  had  been  established  208  bipartite 
treaties  and  constitutions  between  states.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  there  had  been  also  one  sextuple  and 
one  quintuple,  the  total  number  of  such  treaties  being 
equivalent  to  233  bipartite  treaties.  Of  these  four 
were  superseded  or  had  failed,  leaving  a  net  total  of 
229  arbitration  treaties  in  force  or  expected  to  be  in 
force.  Of  these  Austria-Hungary  had  established 
8,  Germany  had  established  i,  Bulgaria  and  Turkey 
had  established  none.  On  the  other  hand,  of  those 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  67 

now  allied  against  the  Central  Powers,  Belgium  had 
established  14,  Brazil  33,  China  2,  Cuba  2,  France 
1 6,  Great  Britain  17,  Greece  4,  Italy  25,  Japan  i, 
Portugal  1 8,  Roumania  i,  Russia  7,  Siam  5,  and 
the  United  States  28.  Among  the  European  neu- 
trals, Denmark  had  established  13,  Netherlands  7, 
Norway  13,  Spain  31,  mostly  with  the  states  of  Cen- 
tral and  South  America,  Sweden  13,  and  Switzer- 
land 14.  The  remainder  of  these  treaties  had  been 
established  by  the  republics  of  Central  and  South 
America.  Thus,  of  the  significant  nations  concerned 
in  the  present  war,  the  Central  Powers  had  estab- 
lished 9  and  the  Entente  Allies  173. 

These  figures  are  eloquent,  for  this  new  reliance 
upon  arbitration  was  not  forced  upon  unwilling 
patriots.  It  sprang  from  their  own  ideals.  Demo- 
cratic patriotism  has  included  the  recognition  of  the 
rights  of  other  nationalities.  A  world  under  the 
control  of  this  sort  of  patriotism  would  be  a  world 
at  peace.  Differences  between  nations,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  very  important  and  irritating  difficulties 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  would 
be  settled  by  mutual  compromise  through  arbitra- 
tion. 

That  this  consummation  so  devoutly  to  be  hoped 
for  has  been  furthered  by  the  present  war  it  is  diffi- 


68  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

cult  to  doubt.  A  League  of  Nations  in  the  interest 
of  the  preservation  of  peace  and  democratic  insti- 
tutions is  already  in  existence.  It  is  fighting  nations 
trained  in  a  precisely  opposite  national  policy.  The 
difference  is  more  than  that  of  constitutional  de- 
velopment, for  constitutional  development  is  the 
expression  of  an  inner  national  spirit.  The  critical 
position  in  which  the  world  finds  itself  to-day  is  the 
result  of  an  education  on  the  part  of  the  German 
Empire  in  which  patriotism  and  religion  are  made 
to  perpetuate  conceptions  of  national  duty  and  policy 
which  make  wars  of  conquest  whenever  circum- 
stances make  them  appear  advantageous.  Patriot- 
ism of  this  unethical  sort  has  been  born  of  Prussian 
hatred  of  popular  rights.  When  Bismarck  began 
the  process  of  reorganizing  Prussia,  putting  her  at 
the  head  of  a  union  of  the  German  states,  he  could 
build  upon  a  national  spirit  which  had  been  develop- 
ing from  the  days  of  the  Great  Elector.  True,  out- 
raged by  the  policy  of  Napoleon  and  chastened  by 
misfortune,  this  national  spirit  for  a  few  years  had 
hoped  for  liberalism.  The  great  writers  who 
flourished  in  Germany  during  the  oppression  of  the 
Napoleonic  military  empire  had  undertaken  to  give 
an  idealistic  and  broadly  human  quality  to  German, 
and  particularly  Prussian,  life.  They  had  met  with 


THE   MORAL  VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  69 

no  little  success.  The  spiritual  renaissance  of  Prus- 
sia during  the  dark  days  which  followed  Jena  was 
noteworthy  above  all  else  for  its  enthusiasm  for  the 
ideals  of  liberalism  which  had  found  expression  in 
America,  England,  and  France,  but  had  been  prosti- 
tuted by  Napoleon  to  his  own  ambitions.  When  the 
Napoleonic  Empire  fell,  all  Germany  was  alive  with 
men  who  looked  forward  to  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era.  Constitutions,  although  not  containing  any 
very  great  amount  of  political  liberty,  had  been  given 
to  Wiirttemberg,  Bavaria,  Hesse-Darmstadt,  and 
Saxony.  One  had  been  promised  in  Prussia.  The 
life  of  the  country  was  full  of  a  noble  hope. 

But  it  amounted  to  nothing.  The  Hohenzollerns 
would  not  give  rights  to  their  nation,  and  no  German 
people  dared  to  acquire  popular  rights  by  revolution. 
The  years  that  preceded  the  rise  of  Bismarck  are  full 
of  a  persistent  and  successful  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  Prussian  government  to  destroy  the  liberal  move- 
ment within  its  own  boundaries.  On  several  occa- 
sions Prussia  was  on  the  verge  of  revolution,  but  the 
Prussian  people  never  went  to  the  last  extremity  of 
conquering  their  rights.  The  leaders  of  the  liberal 
movement  were  imprisoned,  executed  or  fled  the 
country.  The  rise  of  Bismarck  resulted  in  the  re- 
pression of  constitutionalism  and  the  institution  of 


?O  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

a  series  of  wars  which  brought  territorial,  political, 
and  economic  expansion  to  Prussia.  The  machinery 
of  education  was  set  in  operation  to  produce  a 
patriotism  which  would  be  ready  to  justify  and  fol- 
low blindly  a  policy  of  national  aggression.  The 
rise  of  social  democracy  was  opposed  bitterly,  and 
the  franchise  was  so  limited  or  manipulated  after 
the  organization  of  the  German  Empire  as  to  make 
powerless  any  school  of  political  thought  that  would 
check  the  ambitions  of  Prussia  by  a  recognition  of 
the  rights  of  other  nations.  Prussia  planned  to 
crush  France,  to  get  control  of  the  Netherlands  and 
the  mineral  deposits  of  Lorraine;  to  break  at  last 
the  British  commonwealth;  to  appropriate  small 
nations  whenever  desired ;  and  then,  especially  in  the 
last  twenty  years,  to  put  the  United  States  "  in  their 
place."  Parallel  with  this  continental  policy  Prus- 
sianized Germany  planned  to  establish  a  great  colo- 
nial system  and  to  appropriate  the  colonies  of  other 
peoples,  especially  those  of  Holland  and  Great 
Britain. 

Such  a  frankly  brutal  policy,  however,  had  to  be 
justified  by  some  idealistic  appeal.  Germans  sancti- 
fied anti-internationalistic  patriotism  by  appeal  to 
their  Kultur.  Germans  were  instructed  from  in- 
fancy to  believe  in  the  absolute  superiority  of  Ger- 


THE    MORAL   VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  7! 

man  civilization.  The  mission  of  the  great  Empire, 
they  were  taught  to  believe,  is  to  spread  German  or- 
ganization over  the  world.  There  is  to  be  no  policy 
of  kultur  without  a  policy  of  power,  declared  the 
manifesto  of  the  352  university  professors  and 
other  intellectual  leaders  of  Germany  in  1915.  The 
justification  of  military  expansion  was  set  forth, 
not  only  from  the  necessity  of  commercial  expan- 
sion and  the  building  of  a  large  economic  state 
supported  by  the  army,  but  by  the  need  of  enforcing 
the  superiority  of  German  methods,  art,  literature, 
organization,  and  education  upon  conquered  na- 
tions by  military  authority.  International  law 
became  a  chimera.  To  offset  the  rapidly  devel- 
oping movement  for  disarmament  and  universal 
peace  the  German  government  spread  the  illusion  of 
the  danger  to  the  Fatherland  from  other  nations. 
Disregarding  plain  facts  in  the  case  —  that  England 
was  without  military  preparation,  that  France  was 
so  affected  by  peace  propaganda  as  to  be  reducing 
her  standing  army  —  the  German  people  were  taught 
to  believe  that  their  actual  existence  as  a  state  was 
endangered.  The  Hague  Conference  was  opposed 
or  hindered,  arbitration  treaties  were  refused, 
patriotism  and  religion  alike  were  made  militaristic. 
Even  during  the  last  tragic  days  before  the  beginning 


72  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

of  the  war,  as  we  know  now  from  English  sources 
and  the  declaration  of  the  German  ambassador, 
Prince  Lichnowsky,  England,  so  far  from  seeking 
to  injure  the  influence  and  crush  the  expansion  of 
Germany,  had  consented  to  Germany's  having  com- 
mercial dominance  in  Mesopotamia. 

But  all  this  was  concealed,  and  the  people  were 
given  to  understand  that  the  Fatherland  was  in 
danger.  Some  of  the  grounds  upon  which  this  ab- 
surd view  was  taken  have  been  made  to  disappear, 
some  of  them  by  German  authorities  themselves. 
But  the  patriotism  of  the  people  had  been  so  thor- 
oughly shaped  by  the  governing  house  that  it  was  a 
force  to  which  the  Hohenzollerns  could  appeal.  A 
great  chorus  of  intellectual  and  junker  protestations 
of  loyalty  to  the  German  Empire  broke  forth  in  a 
paean  of  Deutschland  iiber  Alles.  The  only  fair  way 
to  describe  this  patriotism  is  to  say  that  it  is  the  old 
obsession  for  conquest  which  ruled  in  Assyria  and  in 
Rome,  masquerading  in  an  appeal  to  a  highly  or- 
ganized and  stimulated  belief  in  the  mission  of  Ger- 
many to  force  its  civilization  over  an  unwilling 
world.  Even  in  the  spread  of  kultur  the  German 
state,  and  not  human  welfare,  was  the  center  of 
patriotism. 

The  difference  between  the  patriotism  which  thus 


THE   MORAL   VALUES   OF    PATRIOTISM  73 

lies  back  of  the  German  policy  and  that  which  lies 
back  of  the  Anglo-French-American  policy  is 
grounded  in  a  difference  in  the  recognition  of  inter- 
national justice.  Democratic  patriotism  has  never 
sought  to  spread  by  conquest  the  blessings  which  the 
various  democratic  nations  possess.  The  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  have  been  the  outstanding 
representatives  of  the  spread  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion through  foreign  missions.  Enormous  sums  of 
money  have  been  raised  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
lishing schools  and  churches  among  non-Christian 
peoples.  Such  Anglo-American  civilization  has 
never  been  enforced  by  military  power.  In  India 
the  British  have  been  particularly  sensitive  to  the 
prejudices  of  the  natives,  and  in  the  Philippines, 
where  the  United  States  has  established  itself  by 
military  power,  the  people  have  been  encouraged 
and  permitted  to  take  over  an  increasing  control  of 
political  affairs. 

It  cannot,  of  course,  be  claimed  that  such  exten- 
sion of  the  best  elements  of  our  civilization  has  been 
conducted  without  mistakes.  We  must  admit  what- 
ever facts  go  to  show  that  methods  have  been  used 
which  are  not  consistent  with  the  ideals  for  which 
we  have  stood.  And  it  must  be  added  that  the 
Germans  also,  though  to  a  far  less  extent,  have 


74  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

founded  missions  and  schools  among  non-Christian 
people.  But  the  great  contrast  lies  in  the  general 
policy  and  tendency  which  the  two  types  of  patriot- 
ism have  set  forth  —  the  one  making  central  the 
German  state  and  the  other  the  furthering  of  human 
rights.  The  two  types  of  patriotism  are  radically 
different  and  lead  to  radically  different  policies  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  As  to  which  will  dominate 
the  future  no  man  of  vision  can  doubt. 


VI 

We  may  then  challenge  any  man  who  claims  to  be 
a  patriot  to  answer  this  question:  For  what  does 
your  nation  stand?  Does  it  stand  for  the  imposi- 
tion of  a  national  civilization  upon  nations  whose 
inhabitants  have  been  killed  and  starved  and  de- 
ported? Does  it  stand  for  the  elevation  of  force 
into  a  religion  and  the  organization  of  war  as  a 
legitimate  and  inevitable  method  of  national  expan- 
sion ?  Or  does  it  stand  for  liberty  and  opportunity 
for  the  individual,  the  right  of  weak  nations  to  main- 
tain their  independence  and  their  national  traditions, 
the  submission  of  international  disputes  to  arbitra- 
tion, and  the  hatred  of  war  as  a  curse? 

When  we  as  Americans  face  such  questions  as 


THE   MORAL   VALUES   OF   PATRIOTISM  75 

these  there  need  be  no  hesitation  in  our  answer.  It 
is  time  that  we  repudiated  the  slander  which  Ger- 
many has  sedulously  championed  and  propagated, 
that  the  United  States  is  materialistic  and  dollar- 
mad.  What  nation  in  all  the  world  has  been  more 
scrupulous  in  its  regard  of  the  rights  of  other  na- 
tions ?  We  have  made  mistakes.  We  have  had  our 
early  period  when  we  believed  with  other  nations 
that  it  was  right  to  conquer.  But  for  seventy  years 
we  have  dared  follow  ideals  which  are  worthy  of  a 
Christian  people.  A  war  lasting  four  terrible  years 
removed  slavery  from  our  constitutional  life.  We 
fought  a  war  with  Spain  that  Cuba  might  be  free. 
And  when  we  came  into  possession  of  the  Philip- 
pines we  not  only  paid  an  indemnity  for  our  victory, 
but  deliberately  undertook  to  educate  the  Filipinos 
in  the  ways  of  democracy  and  self-government. 
We  gave  back  an  indemnity  to  Japan  and  refused 
to  take  a  punitive  indemnity  from  China.  We  have 
preserved  the  Western  Hemisphere  from  European 
spoliation,  and  we  have  helped  our  neighboring 
weaker  republics  into  financial  health  and  interna- 
tional safety.  We  have  refused  to  intervene  in 
Mexico  at  the  behest  of  concessionaires.  We  are  at 
this  moment  fighting  a  war  entailing  unmeasured 
sacrifice,  not  only  that  we  may  be  free  from  the 


76  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

terror  that  intrigues  by  night  and  arms  by  day,  but 
that  the  whole  world  may  share  in  the  same  freedom. 
The  citizen  of  the  United  States  need  not  be  blind 
to  the  crudities,  the  blunders,  and  the  shortcomings 
of  his  nation.  Criticism  is  not  tabooed  by  patriot- 
ism. We  have  done  things  we  ought  not  to  have 
done  and  we  have  left  undone  things  we  ought  to 
have  done;  but  by  the  grace  of  God  there  is  health 
in  us!  We  may  wholeheartedly  declare  that  we 
stand  for  a  nation  that  has  a  mission ;  that  dares  to 
help  other  nations  who  are  in  distress  and  is  deter- 
mined to  right  wrongs  it  may  have  done.  This  is 
the  patriotism  of  the  future:  a  loyalty  to  a  nation 
which  by  its  own  existence  and  purpose  seeks,  not 
only  to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy,  but  to 
make  democracy  safe  for  the  world.  The  millions 
of  fathers  and  mothers  who  see  their  sons  swept  into 
the  maelstrom  of  war  have  no  conflict  with  their 
consciences.  These  sons  are  not  the  creatures  of 
the  will  to  power,  but  of  the  will  to  serve.  Our 
patriotism  dares  glory  in  its  outlook  and  its  hopes 
because  it  knows  that  the  triumph  of  our  land  is  the 
triumph  of  the  cause  of  a  better  humanity.  And 
because  of  this  vicarious  nationalism  it  dares  pray 
with  confidence  to  a  god  of  Justice  for  victory  in 
battle. 


LECTURE  III 

RELIGION   AND   WAR 

Patriotism  is  usually  joined  with  war.  It  is 
naturally  intense  when  a  nation  is  fighting.  Per- 
haps that  is  one  reason  why  it  had  grown  cold  among 
us.  For,  long  ago  as  it  seems,  it  is  only  a  few 
years  since  war  for  Amercia  was  a  matter  of  hardly 
more  than  academic  importance.  We  had  peace 
societies,  several  of  them  heavily  endowed,  but  their 
chief  operation  seemed  to  be  with  anachronistic 
issues.  We  told  one  another  that  war  was  economi- 
cally impossible.  We  were  unmilitary,  and  as  a 
nation  looked  out  upon  war  as  something  which 
might  be  expected  in  remote  and  backward  regions 
like  Africa,  or  in  such  turbulent  and  unmodern 
states  as  those  of  the  Balkans.  We  had  even  come 
to  believe  the  persistent  assertion  that  the  Kaiser 
was  the  guardian  of  the  peace  of  Europe.  Few 
Americans  were  interested  in  international  affairs, 
and  even  our  attitude  in  the  Morocco  imbroglio  was 
that  of  benevolent  aloofness.  Our  hopes  were  cen- 

77 


78  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

tered  around  the  Hague  Conference,  and  we  had 
come  to  feel  that  the  ever  increasing  intimacy  and 
interdependence  of  nations,  indeed  that  the  course 
of  civilization  itself  could  be  trusted  to  make  wars 
cease.  Peace  was  discussed  in  the  genial  atmos- 
phere of  banquets,  and  pacifism  in  its  more  intelli- 
gent moments  seemed  about  to  discover  some  moral 
equivalent  for  war. 

It  is  easy  now  to  see  that  we  were  not  only  over- 
complacent,  but  that  we  were  being  led  astray  by  an 
active  propaganda  conducted  by  those  who  wished 
to  keep  us  in  a  state  of  military  unpreparedness  in 
the  interest  of  their  own  programs  and  policies. 
Most  of  us  did  not  see  this  in  1914.  The  outbreak 
of  the  war  found  us  as  unprepared  in  spirit  as  in 
armament.  In  a  sense  this  national  attitude  was  to 
our  credit.  We  were  living  like  a  gentleman  with 
the  world,  and  we  refused  to  believe  that  any  civil- 
ized nation  was  less  a  gentleman  than  ourselves.  It 
was  not  strange  therefore  that  the  shock  of  conflict 
was  as  great  in  the  field  of  our  spiritual  interests  as 
on  the  fields  of  France.  Its  first  horrors  left  us  not 
only  bewildered,  but  in  distress  of  soul.  Failing  to 
understand  the  causes  which  had  brought  about  the 
hostilities,  many  of  us  seriously  protested  that  not 
only  civilization  but  Christianity  itself  had  collapsed. 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  79 

So  accustomed  had  we  become  to  mistaking  what 
ought  to  be  for  what  really  was,  that  we  fell  into  all 
but  mental  and  moral  chaos. 

Our  first  reaction  was  to  reaffirm  our  faith  in  the 
supremacy  of  moral  ideals.  We  could  not  believe 
the  stories  of  atrocities  which  came  to  us  with  in- 
creasing volume.  The  crime  against  Belgium 
seemed  to  belong  to  the  people  of  another  world. 
Our  attitude  of  mind  was  not  exactly  ostrich-like, 
but  it  was  the  attitude  of  those  whose  spiritual  eye- 
sight had  been  so  accustomed  to  the  mist  of  idealism 
as  to  be  untrustworthy  in  the  light  of  reality.  Re- 
ligious leaders  reasserted  with  new  emphasis  the 
ideals  of  Jesus,  and  we  believed  that  Christianity 
demanded  if  not  actual  non-resistance,  at  least  a 
political  neutrality  and  a  detached  moral  attitude. 
As  Americans  we  felt  that  the  war  was  born  of 
conditions  of  such  thoroughly  continental  pedigree 
as  to  make  it  strictly  European.  Whatever  may 
have  been  our  personal  sympathies,  we  demanded 
peace  and  determined  to  avoid  every  act  and  ex- 
pression that  threatened  peace.  Christianity  we 
felt  was  opposed  to  war  and  the  choice  between  war 
and  Christianity  seemed  absolute. 

I  do  not  need  to  dwell  upon  the  bitterness  of  the 
awakening.  Our  eyes  were  gradually  cleared  to  see 


8O  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

the  real  meaning  of  the  war.  At  last  we  were 
forced  to  realize  that  whatever  may  have  been  the 
occasions  of  the  conflict,  its  fundamental  causes 
involved  us  as  truly  as  any  other  nation.  But  with 
the  awakening  came  fundamental  questions  which 
continue  to  present  themselves  much  to  the  disturb- 
ance of  those  souls  which  dislike  to  look  at  humanity 
as  it  is.  For  these  fundamental  questions  focus  in 
the  challenge  war  makes  to  religion. 


I 

The  conventional  opinion  of  the  relation  of  re- 
ligion and  war  is  that  of  antagonism.  The  awful- 
ness  of  the  one  and  the  hopes  of  the  other  appear 
irreconcilable.  It  follows  that  the  conventional 
opinion  is  apt  to  hold  that  the  spread  of  religion  will 
develop  such  hostility  to  war  as  to  make  universal 
peace  a  certainty. 

Unfortunately  the  actual  facts  of  human  experi- 
ence do  not  justify  this  opinion.  Discrimination  is 
imperative.  Before  religion  ends  war,  religions^ 
which  have  hitherto  been  dominant  must  be  materi- 
ally changed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  the  great 
religions  has  been  in  practice  frankly  anti-militar- 
istic. As  a  rule  religion  has  been  the  support  of  the 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  8 1 

warrior,  and,  with  exceptions  to  which  reference  will 
be  made  later,  has  never  intelligently  devoted  its 
moral  power  to  making  war  impossible. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  ancient  re- 
ligions were  militaristic.  Yahweh  of  the  Hebrews 
was  the  God  of  battles  who  taught  his  followers  the 
use  of  the  bow  and  the  chariot,  and  who  was  ex- 
pected to  fight  with  his  people's  armies.  There  are 
no  more  terrible  stories  in  history  than  those  which 
describe  the  treatment  accorded  the  Canaanites  in 
his  name.  In  this  respect  the  Hebrew  religion  was 
at  one  with  other  religions.  Polytheism  always  had 
its  god  of  war  or  its  goddess  of  savagery,  and  one 
of  the  chief  duties  of  the  representative  of  religion 
was  to  prepare  his  people  for  war. 

This  is,  of  course,  only  to  say  that  religion  has 
partaken  of  the  general  ethical  quality  of  the  soci- 
eties its  followers  have  formed.  The  history  of 
humanity  is  a  succession  of  bloody  struggles.  The 
moral  content  of  religion  has  been  largely  drawn 
from  contemporaneous  social  practice,  and  this  has 
not  been  so  organized  as  to  raise  the  question  of 
the  justice  of  war  as  an  expression  of  the  fighting 
instinct  of  the  race. 

In  addition,  when  one  looks  for  the  causes  of  wars 
he  finds  religion  among  the  most  potent.  Moham- 


82  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

medanism  has  notoriously  been  a  military  religion, 
but  it  would  not  be  safe  to  say  in  this  particular  it 
has  been  any  more  pronouncedly  militaristic  than 
Christianity  itself  with  its  Crusades  and  Wars  of 
Religion. 

This  fact,  when  once  analyzed,  is  seen  to  mean 
that  religions  have  failed  to  deal  directly  with  the 
fundamental  causes  of  wars.  And  it  goes  without 
saying  that  unless  the  forces  which  have  led  to  wars 
shall  in  the  future  be  dominated  by  moral  vision 
and  idealism  sufficient  to  bring  about  international 
adjustments  through  arbitration  and  mutual  com- 
promise,, war  will  remain  inevitable. 

To  make  this  thesis  more  intelligible,  let  us  ask  the 
question :  From  what  motives  have  wars  sprung  ? 
When  this  is  answered  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to 
decide  what  deterrent  to  the  appeal  to  arms  our 
religion  can  render. 

Referred  to  their  basal  causes  wars  have  sprung 
from  imperialistic  and  economic  causes. 

The  wars  of  the  ancient  world  were  in  most 
cases  those  of  unashamed  desire  for  conquest.  That 
this  desire  had  origins  now  beyond  recognition  may 
be  true.  Those  who  see  only  economic  determin- 
ism in  human  affairs  posit  for  all  social  action  some 
economic  force  which  in  turn  rests  on  geographical 


RELIGION    AND   WAR  83 

foundations.  And  there  is,  of  course,  a  large  ele- 
ment of  truth  in  such  a  contention.  If  we  recall 
the  turbulent  course  of  history  in  the  western  world 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  desire  to  trade  with  or  to 
control  the  trade  of  other  nations  has  led  to  war. 
Commercial  expansion  can  be  discovered  in  the 
struggles  between  the  Greek  cities  inaugurated  by 
Pericles.  Doubtless  if  we  were  better  informed 
as  to  the  century  long  conflict  which  waged  between 
the  nations  of  the  Nile  and  the  Mesopotamian  val- 
leys, similar  causes  might  be  found  at  work  there. 
But  in  the  consciousness  of  these  ancient  states  such 
economic  motives  were  secondary  to  the  primary 
desire  of  conquest.  For  conquest  brought  booty 
and  slaves  and  tribute.  To  fight  was  the  one  way 
of  expanding  the  income  and  the  territory  of  the 
state.  As  one  traces  the  rise  of  the  ancient  em- 
pires the  conviction  grows  that  the  ambition  for 
mastery  led  to  the  wars  of  conquest.  Powerful 
nations  like  Egypt  and  Assyria  wished  to  subdue 
the  land  which  lay  between  them,  and  ultimately  one 
another.  The  ruthless  armies  which  swept  down 
from  the  north  and  up  from  the  south  were  primarily 
concerned  in  the  building  up  of  huge  empires  within 
which  there  should  be  subject  cities  and  people. 
There  is  little  evidence  that  either  people  sought  to 


84  PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 

control  foreign  markets,  for  commerce  had  not 
reached  the  development  of  modern  times.  The 
world  was  not  industrial.  The  forces  of  produc- 
tion were  very  partially  developed,  and  war  sprang 
from  primitive  instincts  rather  than  from  economic 
policy.  These  ancient  wars  fill  the  pages  of  the 
Old  Testament.  The  Hebrew  invaders  of  Canaan 
were  primarily  conquerors  who  by  force  of 
arms  took  over  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  wars  between  Persia  and 
Greece.  Persia  wanted  to  expand  her  power  and 
rule  the  world.  Greece  refused  to  be  submerged, 
and  the  Persian  Wars  which  put  an  end  to  Persian 
ambitions  and  delivered  Greece  from  fear  of  the 
Orient  were  due  to  no  clearly  discoverable  com- 
mercial policy  on  the  part  of  either  of  the  two 
parties.  Alexander,  it  is  true,  had  Napoleonic  plans 
for  world-empire,  but  he  died  before  he  had  trans- 
formed his  newly  acquired  divinity  into  economic 
policy. 

Similarly  when  Rome  fought  for  supremacy  in 
the  Mediterranean  basin.  Its  one  great  rival,  Car- 
thage, was  a  commercial  city,  but  Rome  had  no  com- 
merce to  be  protected  or  extended.  The  issue  was 
one  of  supremacy  rather  than  of  markets.  The 


RELIGION    AND   WAR  85 

Roman  Empire  was  born  of  a  Nietzschean  will-to- 
power. 

The  wars  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  were  largely 
fought  for  the  purpose  of  extending  feudal  states. 
It  was  not  until  the  social  forces  began  the  organiza- 
tion of  modern  nations  that  wars  were  fought  pri- 
marily for  commercial  ends.  And  even  then  the 
economic  motives  outside  of  that  of  possession 
of  more  territory  were  often  not  paramount.  Lords 
fought  lords  and  kings  fought  kings  to  gain  new 
territories  and  extend  their  power.  The  long  wars 
between  France  and  England  increasingly  involved 
economic  conditions,  but  the  dynastic  claims  were 
especially  potent. 

When,  however,  in  the  sixteenth  century  new  con- 
tinents were  to  be  preempted  nations  became  in- 
creasingly economic.  Possibilities  of  trade  with 
India  led  inevitably  to  international  struggles,  while 
the  enormous  wealth  of  South  American  mines  and 
the  vast  opportunities  for  colonization  offered  by 
North  America  became  increasingly  potent  causes 
of  the  wars  which  all  but  wrecked  Europe  before 
and  after  that  mad  epoch  known  as  the  Thirty 
Years'  War. 

But  it  was  not  until  the  industrial  age  fairly  opened 
in  the  eighteenth  century  and  nations  were  forced 


86 


PATRIOTISM    AND    RELIGION 


to  find  new  markets  for  their  rapidly  increasing 
products  that  economic  policy  became  militaristic. 
Imperialistic  motives  were  present  in  the  rapid  de- 
velopment of  Great  Britain  and  in  the  career  of 
Napoleon,  but  the  new  nations,  though  fighting  like 
the  ancient  cities  for  territory  and  subjects,  in- 
creasingly sought  economic  supremacy.  Modern 
wars  have  been  very  largely  economic.  Some  na- 
tion has  possessed  the  raw  materials  which  another 
nation  wanted  or  determined  to  have  in  order  to 
perfect  its  industrial  development.  Nations  that 
would  be  commercial  lacked  harbors  and  struggled 
for  access  to  the  sea.  The  rapidly  narrowing  op- 
portunity for  colonization  incited  nations  to  fight 
other  nations  for  the  control  of  land  as  yet  un- 
appropriated by  European  states.  Modern  wars 
are  born  of  a  desire  for  immediate  expansion  of \ 
territory  and  for  the  control  of  world  markets./ 
The  great  nations  who  have  harbors  and  colonies 
have  been  increasingly  anxious  for  peace,  while  na- 
tions which  like  Russia  and  Germany  lacked  one 
or  the  other  or  both  maintained  war  as  a  part  of 
national  policy.  Commercial  expansion  was  to  be 
forced  by  arms.  The  German's  demand  for  a  place 
in  the  sun  is  traceable  in  no  small  degree  to  a  belief 
that  political  supremacy  is  necessary  for  commer- 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  87 

cial  expansion.  To  Germany,  as  to  Assyria  and 
Ghengis  Kahn,  war  is  not  a  thing  to  be  avoided, 
but  to  be  expected,  planned  for,  and  declared  when- 
ever the  moment  seemed  favorable.  Germanic  re- 
ligion includes  and  justifies  this  fearful  purpose. 
"  A  good  Christian/'  declared  the  Kaiser  in  a  public 
address,  "  is  synonymous  with-  a^good  soldier." 

The  ultimate  relation  of  Christianity  and  war 
must  be  found  in  the  attitude  of  Christians  to  these 
two  causes  of  war,  conquest  and  economic  expan- 
sion through  force.  Appeals  to  Christian  prin- 
ciples after  national  policies  in  these  regards  have 
been  determined,  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  will 
be  futile.  A  nation's  spirit,  a  people's  loyalty,  must 
come  under  the  "sway of  Christian  ideals  if  war  is 
to  end.  Patriotism  itself  must  embody  and  express 
the  principles  of  Jesus  if  peace  is  to  be  on  earth. 

Let  us  at  once  grant  that  such  a  spiritual  regen- 
eration will  not  be  instantaneous.  It  must  be  the 
result  of  social  forces  themselves.  If  Christianity 
is  to  end  war  it  must  cure  the  world  of  its  lust 
for  conquest  and  bring  economic  expansion  under 
the  control  of  justice.  To  this  I  shall  return  in 
my  final  lecture.  For  the  present  let  us  look  at 
the  situation  the  present  war  illustrates,  considering 
only  the  broad  question  of  Christian  duty  in  a  war 


88  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

in  which  economic  causes  are  not  absent,  but  which 
has  clearly  become  a  struggle  between  two  philoso- 
phies of  the  state,  two  national  moralities.  As 
events  now  stand,  we  must  determine  the  call  of 
duty  with  regard  not  to  war  in  general  but  to  a 
war  in  particular. 

Two  views  regarding  war  as  a  phase  of  patriot- 
ism, each  with  its  religious  aspect,  rule  the  world. 
The  one  is  set  forth  in  the  past  by  world  con- 
querors of  Asia  and  Europe  and  to-day  by  the  Ger- 
man publicists,  philosophers,  and  statesmen.  The 
other  is  set  forth  by  France,  Great  Britain,  and  the 
United  States.  In  measuring  the  moral  values  of 
these  two  attitudes  of  mind  it  is  not  enough  to  say 
that  the  one  is  the  characteristic  of  a  growing  state 
and  the  other  expresses  the  social  mind  of  nations 
who  have  sufficient  territory  and  commercial  oppor- 
tunity. Such  an  interpretation  of  a  world-crisis  is 
altogether  too  simple  and  materialistic.  The  deeper 
question  arises,  why,  in  the  world  at  the  beginning  of 
the  twentieth  century,  was  it  necessary  for  one  nation 
to  expand  at  the  expense  of  another?  Granting  as 
we  must  that  economic  expansion  in  the  past  has 
been  by  wars  justified  and  sanctified  by  religion,  is 
there  ground  to  argue  that  this  must  always  be  the 
case?  In  a  modern  world  must  commercial  ex- 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  89 

pansion  be  dependent  upon  military  expansion,  and 
must  Christianity  as  a  group  attitude  always  leave 
the  relations  of  nations  to  be  settled  by  force? 

The  answer  of  German  patriotism  and  religion 
is  seen  in  the  German  view  that  aggressive  war 
is  a  legitimate  element  in  a  program  of  national  ex- 
pansion. Leaders  of  German  religious  thought  in 
published  manifestoes  have  justified  such  an  an- 
swer. Might,  not  the  Golden  Rule,  must  fix  inter- 
national relations.  Such  a  view  was  not  forced 
upon  Germany.  Its  trade  has  expanded'enormously 
without  appeal  to  military  coercion.  Its  fleets  were 
upon  every  sea,  its  merchants  were  in  every  port. 
There  was  no  let  or  hindrance  offered  by  any  state 
to  this  expansion.  Its  trade  with  its  rivals  was 
enormous,  and  was  enriching  all  parties.  The  free- 
dom of  the  seas  was  absolute.  The  passage  of  goods 
upon  the  land  was  unrestricted.  If  the  history  of 
the  generation  which  made  modern  Europe  shows 
anything,  it  shows  that  governmental  assistance  in 
the  development  of  commerce  was  independent  of 
military  forces.  The  war  that  broke  out  in  1914 
had,  it  is  true,  economic  motives,  but  it  was  not 
born  of  simple  economic  necessity.  The  trade  of 
Germany  would  have  been  assured  if  there  had  been 
no  millions  in  arms.  Deep  beneath  the  present 


9O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

world  conflict  lie  two  different  social  philosophies 
and  two  conceptions  of  morality.  On  the  one  hand 
is  the  state  philosophy  which  demands  political  con- 
trol through  military  power,  and  a  religion  that 
worships  a  German  God  of  battles;  on  the  other  is 
the  policy  that  seeks  commercial  development 
through  the  maintenance  of  peace  and  an  attempt, 
imperfect  though  it  is,  to  supply  Christian  ideals 
to  international  affairs. 

Such  a  contrast  events  have  shown  involves  not 
merely  the  policy  of  governments.  It  is  also  the 
expression  of  the  mind  of  peoples.  It  embodies 
two  conceptions  of  patriotism  and  religion.  Ger- 
many, seeking  commercial  expansion  through  war, 
has  trained  its  citizens  —  ninety  per  cent,  of  whom 
must  always  be  subjects  of  a  ruling  tenth  —  both 
to  accept  its  philosophy,  and  to  identify  national  in- 
terests with  militaristic  policy  and  an  imperialistic 
program.  The  Kaiser's  heaven  where,  "  assembled 
about  the  great  Ally  above  "  are  Frederick  II,  Wil- 
liam I  and  their  generals  and  field  marshals,  is  no 
place  for  democrats.  Democracies  have  trained 
their  citizenship  to  a  belief  that  the  economic  wel- 
fare of  a  nation  is  to  be  reached  through  non-mili- 
taristic policies.  If  patriotism  be  loyalty  to  a  na- 
tion's ideals,  we  have,  as  has  already  been  pointed 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  91 

out,  not  only  two  different  qualities  of  patriotism, 
but  also  two  different  conceptions  of  the  relation 
of  religion  to  national  policies. 


II 


The  champions  of  the  imperialistic  and  conse- 
quently the  militaristic  patriotism  are  not  without 
argument.  They  appeal  to  the  alleged  law  of  bio- 
logical necessity.  They  have  the  history  of  the  past 
with  its  great  empires  of  the  East,  of  Alexander  and 
of  Rome.  If  social  evolution  has  within  it  no  ideal- 
istic creative  power,  if  humanity  is  to  be  developed 
by  the  rigorous  determinism  of  inherited  condi- 
tions and  animal  evolution,  it  is  indeed  hard  to  see 
why  war  is  not  to  be  inevitable  and  permanent. 

The  champions  of  war  can  use  still  other  argu- 
ments. War  certainly  brings  group  solidarity,  both 
for  the  group  itself  and  for  its  individuals.  The 
mere  aggregation  of  numbers  under  a  common  dis- 
cipline and  for  a  common  end,  has  been  of  no 
small  value.  Practically  all  the  modern  nations 
have  come  into  being  through  war.  Humanity  has 
always  yielded  to  the  enormous  unifying  power 
which  lies  in  a  socialized  hatred.  If  you  can  get 


92  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

men  to  hate  together,  they  will  act  together.  A  na- 
tion's hatred  reaches  down  to  individuals  and  every 
citizen  finds  himself  possessed  of  a  desire  to  injure 
those  who  have  been  declared  to  be  the  nation's 
enemies.  Patriotism  becomes  a  socialized  hatred 
that  unites  as  it  maddens  an  entire  people  to  fight 
for  national  goals. 

Furthermore,  we  need  no  Bernhardi  to  point  out 
that  war  has  inspired  nations  to  common  sacrifice 
and  to  bravery  in  defense  of  what  is  regarded  as  a 
supremely  important  common  good. 

One  may  even  go  further  and  say  that  it  is  not 
impossible  that  war  has  stimulated  moral  attitudes. 
Few  modern  nations  have  entered  war  without  an 
appeal  to  noble  sentiments  and  the  protestation  of 
loyalty  to  noble  ideals.  Out  from  such  an  attitude 
of  mind  have  come  noble  examples  of  individual 
and  social  sacrifice  and  human  hearts  have  been 
melted  together  by  the  fires  of  common  agony. 
Our  poetry  is  filled  with  war  songs,  and  political 
leaders  have  very  generally  been  soldiers. 

But  if  thus  war  is  not  without  its  arguments, 
over  against  them  must  be  others  which  modify 
the  conclusions  which  have  been  drawn  in  favor  of 
war.  Not  only  does  war  plunge  human  life  into 
the  abysmal  misery  of  fathers  and  mothers  weeping 


RELIGION    AND   WAR  93 

for  their  children,  but  out  from  the  acute  hatreds 
of  war  have  come  persistent  hatreds  which  have 
perverted  the  relations  of  nations  and  incalculably 
hindered  the  development  of  the  finer  things  of  life. 
Individualism  has  been  lost  in  military  organization ; 
injury  to  nations  and  to  individuals  has  been  not 
only  economic  but  moral ;  unworthy  ambitions  have 
been  given  new  life;  and  social  reforms  have  been 
obscured  or  abandoned  because  of  military  necessity. 
If  it  be  true,  as  must  be  admitted,  that  out  from  war 
has  come  renewed  confidence  in  immortality  and  in 
God,  it  must  also  be  admitted  that  just  as  truly  from 
war  has  come  a  lowering  of  moral  habits,  the  loss 
of  momentum  in  social  reconstruction,  a  brutalizing 
of  the  thought  of  God,  and  a  carelessness  in  the 
recognition  of  human  rights.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
the  heart  of  a  genuine  Christian  cries  out  against 
such  an  evil. 

How  can  those  holding  such  divergent  patriot- 
isms profess  the  same  religion?  Do  they  not  pray 
to  the  same  God  in  the  name  of  the  same  Christ? 
In  answering  such  a  supreme  question  it  is  necessary 
first  of  all  to  look  at  facts.  And  the  answer  here 
is  the  same  in  the  case  of  Christian  as  in  that  of  non- 
Christian  people.  Christianity,  like  the  religions  of 
Assyria,  Egypt,  Judea,  Greece,  Rome  and  Arabia, 


94  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

has  been  the  servant  and  defender  of  war.  Of 
course,  such  an  answer  does  not  refer  to  Christianity 
as  an  ideal  religious  system.  A  truly  Christian 
world  would  neither  be  armed  nor  in  fear  of  arma- 
ments. But  such  a  Christian  world  has  never  ex- 
isted any  more  than  has  the  Republic  of  Plato.  In 
this  sense  is  there  truth  in  the  cynical  apothegm  that 
Christianity  has  not  failed  because  it  never  has  been 
tried.  The  Christianity  of  our  ideals  is  not  the 
Christianity  of  history.  Christianity  as  an  histor- 
ical religion  is  the  religion  of  Christians;  an  actual 
social  phenomenon;  the  mass  of  experiences, 
thoughts,  behavior,  institutions  and  teachings  of 
a  social  group  known  as  the  church.  It  is  not  what 
it  ought  to  be  but  what  it  has  been  and  is.  Church- 
Christianity  has  never  been  identical  with  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus.  It  has  had  the  gospel  about  Jesus, 
but  it  has  minimized  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  It  has 
progressed  toward  love  of  neighbors  but  it  has  not 
centered  itself  upon  socializing  that  love  as  a  divinely 
established  duty  for  nations. 

According  to  the  authoritative  formulas  of  Chris- 
tian groups  religious  faith  looks  to  a  post-mortem 
salvation.  It  involves  the  acceptance  of  certain 
truths,  which  truths  have  been  organized  authorita- 
tively by  various  groups  and  expressed  in  creeds, 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  95 

confessions  and  rites.  Every  ecclesiastical  ortho- 
doxy has  been  developed  in  large  measure  outside  the 
area  of  morality.  The  Apostles'  Creed,  for  ex- 
ample, has  within  it  no  reference  to  morality.  It 
sets  forth  certain  things  about  God,  about  Christ, 
about  the  church,  about  the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
about  the  second  coming  of  Christ,  and  about  the 
world  to  come.  There  is  in  it  no  reference  to  hu- 
man relations,  the  need  of  love,  the  sin  fulness  of 
injuring  one's  neighbor.  So  far  as  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  the  foundation  of  all  orthodoxy,  is  concerned, 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  non-existent.  The 
more  elaborate  creeds  of  the  Catholic  church,  those 
of  Nicea  and  Chalcedon,  introduce  morals  no  more 
than  does  the  Apostles'  Creed.  The  Athanasian 
Creed  puts  the  matter  sharply:  to  believe  in  the 
Trinity,  in  the  two  natures  of  the  Christ  is  to  be 
saved;  to  doubt  them  is  to  be  lost.  Even  the  doc- 
trine of  original  sin  as  organized  by  Augustine  and 
embodied  in  practically  the  whole  mass  of  Christian 
theology,  gets  its  moral  element  from  the  sin  of 
Adam  which  has  corrupted  human  nature  so  that 
every  person  is  born  not  only  sinful  but  damned. 
It  is  true  that  some  are  elected  by  God  for  His  own 
good  pleasure  from  this  corrupt  and  hopeless  hu- 
manity, but  this  election  is  explicitly  said  to  be  wholly 


96  PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 

outside  the  region  of  human  morality.  Arminian- 
ism,  it  is  true,  recognizes  that  God's  election  is  con- 
ditioned by  His  foreknowledge  of  man's  faith,  but 
this  faith  is  still  largely  assent  to  metaphysical  and 
eschatological  propositions. 

It  is  not  difficult,  therefore,  to  see  why  Chris- 
tianity thus  conceived  has  never  included  opposition 
to  war.  To  it  war  is  in  an  entirely  different  area 
from  that  of  religion.  Combatants  can  pray  to  God 
for  victory,  but  their  salvation  from  hell  is  not  de- 
termined by  any  moral  attitude  of  their  own.  Al- 
though a  church  may  be  a  phase  of  national  life, 
religion  itself  has  not  been  primarily,  if  indeed, 
secondarily,  concerned  with  the  application  of  the 
principles  of  Jesus  to  the  activities  of  social  groups. 
Men  have  fought  for  their  faith,  but  their  faith  has 
not  kept  them  from  fighting. 

It  is  no  accident,  therefore,  that  ecclesiastically 
orthodox  Christians  have  waged  war  consistently 
and  almost  continuously.  There  was  nothing  in 
their  operating  religion  to  prevent  fighting.  The 
state  dealt  with  this  world;  religion  with  the  next. 
When  men  like  Francis  of  Assisi  undertook  to  ap- 
ply the  moral  principles  of  Jesus  to  life,  their  ef- 
forts involved  the  taking  of  individuals  out  from 
the  social  group.  With  St.  Trancis  those  who 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  97 

sought  to  reproduce  within  themselves  the  life  of 
Christ  did  so  by  withdrawing  from  the  world,  tak- 
ing on  the  social  attitude  of  beggary  and  the  inter- 
mediate activity  of  charity.  It  is  a  state  church- 
Christianity  that  supports  German  imperialism. 
And  in  Germany  state-religion  has  never  permitted 
any  other  conception  of  Christianity  to  be  preached 
to  the  people.  The  liberalism  of  German  univer- 
sity teaching  has  been  academic  and  not  socially 
reconstructive. 

A  second  interpretation  of  Christianity  is  the  pre- 
cise opposite  of  this  ecclesiastical  orthodoxy  of 
other-worldliness.  The  followers  of  Fox  and 
Menno  have  emphasized  mystical  elements  in  re- 
ligion, and  in  their  morality  have  sought  to  produce 
an  other-worldliness  which,  based  upon  certain 
teachings  of  Jesus,  elevated  non-resistance  to  a  moral 
imperative.  The  effect  of  such  a  view  of  Chris- 
tianity as  this  has  been  to  produce  a  quality  of  soul 
that  is  among  our  noblest  inheritances.  In  the 
effort  of  the  Society  of  Friends  to  follow  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Spirit,  we  see  sincere  and  beautiful  ex- 
pressions of  the  Christian  spirit.  They  have  en- 
dured the  oppressions  of  their  enemies  in  the  spirit 
of  forgiveness,  and  they  have  given  to  the  world 
noble  lessons  in  peace  of  soul  and  simple  faith  in 


9  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

a  God  who  is  not  far  away,  but  present  in  the  be- 
liever's heart.  Such  an  attitude  of  mind  has  always 
been  hostile  to  war.  The  Quaker  has  consistently 
followed  his  conscience  and  the  inner  light  in  re- 
fusing to  participate  in  war,  though  he  has  not 
refused  to  be  a  good  citizen  and  during  war  he  has 
not  hesitated  to  endure  danger  in  the  service  of  his 
fellows. 

On  March  29th,  1918,  the  Philadelphia  Yearly 
Meeting  of  Friends  issued  this  noteworthy  state- 
ment: 

"The  basis  of  our  opposition  to  war  is  much  more  than 
any  single  command  of  the  Old  or  the  New  Testament.  It  is 
our  faith  that  the  way  of  love  by  which  our  Master,  Jesus 
Christ,  met  and  conquered  evil,  remains  for  His  followers  to- 
day the  true  method  of  combating  wrong.  For  us,  as  for 
Him,  this  involves  refusal  to  use  means  which,  like  war, 
violate  love  and  defeat  its  ends ;  but  it  does  not  mean  a  weak 
neutrality  toward  evil.  For  us,  as  for  Him,  it  means  a  life 
of  action  devoted  to  the  heroic  purpose  of  overcoming  evil 
with  good.  The  unspeakable  sufferings  of  humanity  are  now 
calling  us  and  all  men  to  larger  sacrifices  and  more  earnest 
endeavors  to  put  this  faith  into  practice.  To  such  endeavors 
we  dedicate  ourselves. 

"In  accordance  with  this  faith,  we  desire  to  maintain  all 
our  relationships  to-day. 

"To  our  beloved  country,  we  affirm  the  deep  loyalty  of 
grateful  hearts.  We  long  to  help  her  to  realize  her  noblest 
capacities  as  a  great  Republic  dedicated  to  liberty  and 


RELIGION    AND   WAR  99 

democracy.  But  we  believe  that  we  best  serve  our  country 
and  all  humanity  when  we  maintain  that  religion  and  con- 
science are  superior  to  the  state. 

"To  President  Wilson,  we  declare  our  appreciation  of  his 
steadfast  and  courageous  efforts  to  keep  the  aims  of  the 
United  States  in  this  great  conflict  liberal,  disinterested  and 
righteous. 

"  To  our  fellow-countrymen,  who  are  following  the  lead- 
ings of  conscience  into  ways  where  we  cannot  be  their  com- 
rades, we  give  assurance  of  respect  and  sympathy  in  all  that 
they  endure.  Finally, 

"For  all  men,  whether  they  he  called  our  enemies  or  not, 
we  pray  that  the  sacrificial  love  of  Christ,  stirring  us  to  re- 
pentance, may  reconcile  and  unite  all  mankind  in  the  brother- 
hood of  His  spirit." 

If  the  religion  of  the  Quakers  had  become  the 
religion  of  the  world  war  would  have  ceased.  But 
it  has  not  become  the  religion  of  the  world  or  even 
of  an  appreciable  section  of  the  world.  Personally 
I  believe  its  moral  idealism  is  nearer  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  than  is  ecclesiastical  orthodoxy,  but  the  ques- 
tion that  confronts  us  is  not  one  of  ideals  or  theories 
but  of  actual  social  attitudes  and  tendencies.  What- 
ever may  be  our  individual  convictions,  in  the  realm 
of  actual  conduct  we  are  dealing  with  organized 
social  groups  controlled  by  socialized  passions,  con- 
victions, and  principles  of  conduct.  Church-Chris- 
tianity must  be  met  by  a  more  truly  democratic  re- 
ligion if  war  is  to  end  through  the  elimination  of 


TOO  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

social  attitudes  that  lead  to  war.     And  this  brings  us 
to  a  consideration  of  pacifism  in  its  larger  aspects. 

Ill 

The  pacifist  is  right  when  he  claims  that  war  is  \ 
un-Christian,  but  he  is  mistaken  when  he  claims 
that  all  participation  in  war  is  un-Christian.  The 
truth  of  this  paradox  is  apparent  when  opposition 
to  war  becomes  opposition  to  a  war.  For  an 
American  to  refuse  to  share  in  the  present  war, 
to  oppose  preparation  for  war,  to  induce  men  to 
avoid  draft,  and  to  attack  all  forms  of  military 
preparation  for  the  purpose  of  national  defense,  is 
not  Christian. 

But  how,  one  may  ask,  can  this  be  true?  Why 
should  those  who  oppose  war  ever  be  under  obliga- 
tion to  support  a  war?  Pacifists,  in  the  name  of 
Christianity,  vehemently  affirm  the  inconsistency  of 
such  a  thesis.  Speaking  generally  their  arguments 
are  of  two  sorts. 

There  is  first  that  of  those  pacifists  who  do  not 
believe  in  human  progress  and  who  hold  tenaciously 
and  sometimes  joyously  to  the  belief  that  the  world 
is  growing  worse.  They  reproduce  the  early  Chris- 
tian expectation  of  the  speedy  return  of  Jesus  from 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  101 

heaven  and  the  imminent  end  of  the  world,  and 
consistently  urge  that  the  true  Christian  awaits  a 
great  cataclysm  due  to  the  intervention  of  super- 
natural and  miraculous  persons.  Why  then  fight  ? 

Periods  of  war  have  repeatedly  given  rise  to  some 
form  of  this  belief  in  supernatural  intervention. 
At  present  the  churches  of  America  are  dangerously 
full  of  this  expectation.  To  an  extent  unbelievable 
by  those  who  are  out  of  touch  with  the  situation, 
clergymen  and  others  are  going  about  the  country 
announcing  the  approaching  end  of  the  world  and 
calling  upon  people  to  await  the  millennium  and  the 
day  of  judgment.  Prophetic  conferences  are  be- 
ing held  in  the  larger  cities,  and  throughout  the 
country  districts.  The  motives  of  these  evangelists 
undoubtedly  vary.  Some  are  certainly  sincere  in 
their  naive  centering  of  Christianity  upon  the  sec- 
ond coming  of  Christ.  Others  are  so  hostile  to  the 
present  policies  of  the  government  as  to  have  been 
subject  to  investigation  on  the  part  of  the  Federal 
Government.  But  whatever  may  be  the  particular 
type  of  doctrine,  the  common  element  in  all  such 
beliefs  is  that  history  contains  no  hope  and  must 
come  to  an  end.  Fantastic  expositions  of  scripture 
find  in  the  Book  of  Revelation  the  number  of  the 
Kaiser,  identify  him  with  the  anti-Christ,  discover 


PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

prophecies  of  tanks  in  the  prophets,  dates  when  the 
war  will  end  in  Daniel  and  the  Revelation,  urge  the 
church  to  await  the  miraculous  disappearance  of 
saints  into  heavenly  "  rapture,"  foretell  a  period  of 
misery  in  which  forces  of  evil  are  to  be  for  a  time 
triumphant,  although  in  the  end  they  are  to  be  con- 
quered by  Christ  and  the  angels. 

Evidence  at  hand  shows  that  the  effect  of  such 
teaching  is  in  many  cases  a  refusal  on  the  part  of  its 
followers  to  share  in  national  burdens,  either  of 
military  service  or  of  financial  support  of  the  gov- 
ernment or  of  the  Red  Cross.  And  even  when  such 
refusal  is  lacking,  its  champions,  whether  inten- 
tionally or  not,  sap  the  springs  of  national  courage 
and  make  unintelligible  prophesying  superior  to  de- 
votion to  national  well-being.  With  such  pacifism 
intelligent  citizens  should  have  no  sympathy. 

The  other  type  of  pacifism  is  of  a  higher  character. 
It  looks  to  no  miraculous  end  of  the  world,  but 
rather  to  the  operation  of  non-resistance  not  unlike 
that  of  the  Society  of  Friends  or  the  Mennonites. 
Its  champions,  however,  as  a  rule  do  not  belong  to 
either  society.  Few  of  them  are  theologically  ortho- 
dox; many  of  them  are  theological  radicals.  Like 
Tolstoy  they  are  dominated  by  a  conception  of 
Christianity  gained  by  neglecting  the  historical  in- 


RELIGION   AND  WAR  IO3 

heritances  in  our  religion  and  by  generalizing  cer- 
tain of  the  sayings  of  Jesus,  like  "  resist  not  evil." 
The  position  which  these  pacifists  take  is  in  effect 
that  the  refusal  on  the  part  of  a  nation  to  defend 
itself  against  the  aggression  of  another  nation  would 
tend  to  mitigate  that  other  nation's  aggressiveness 
and  shame  it  into  peace.  They  recall  Christ's  words 
about  turning  the  other  cheek,  but  overlook  the 
social  philosophy  involved  in  his  saying  that  those 
who  take  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword. 
A  distinguished  representative  of  this  point  of  view 
was  recently  asked  as  to  how  it  would  be  harmonized 
with  the  treatment  accorded  by  the  Germans  to 
Russia  after  the  refusal  of  the  Bolsheviki  to  engage 
further  in  war.  Her  answer  was  in  effect  that  if 
the  propaganda  of  the  Bolsheviki  had  not  been 
checked  among  the  German  soldiers,  peace  would 
have  come. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  question  the  moral  sincerity 
of  these  high-minded  but  unpractical  souls.  The 
conscientious  objector  —  provided  that  he  does  not 
speak  with  a  German  accent  —  should  not  be  perse- 
cuted. But  sincerity  is  not  synonymous  with  wis- 
dom. Good  people  frequently  lack  good  sense. 
The  difficulty  with  these  particular  good  people 
is  two- fold :  in  the  first  place  they  overestimate  the 


IO4  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

power  of  moral  ideals  to  determine  the  action  of  a 
nation  which,  like  Germany,  has  organized  itself  for 
war  and  by  an  un-Christian  philosophy  has  justified 
itself  in  its  pursuance  of  war  as  a  means  of  national 
development.  And  in  the  second  place,  they  have 
an  abstract  view  of  morality.  To  them  right  ex- 
ists apart  from  concrete  human  action.  The  actual 
forces  of  social  evolution  are  neglected  and  moral 
imperatives  are  judged  with  no  regard  to  the  prog- 
ress and  impulses  of  men  who  are  subject  to  the 
forces  of  social  evolution. 

And  this  amounts  to  another  misinterpretation  of 
Christianity.  And  only  in  a  proper  interpretation 
of  Christianity  is  the  solution  of  the  paradox  which 
we  have  just  met. 

Christianity  as  a  religion  is  not  to  be  described  by 
making  an  anthology  of  the  words  of  Jesus.  It  is 
not  a  generalization  of  the  personal  habits  of  Jesus. 
It  is  the  actual  reaction  of  individuals  and  groups  \Yrt 
to  his  ideals.  Christianity  is  a  social  movement 
partly  expressed  and  partly  not  expressed  by  the 
churches.  -  Its  center  is  not  to  be  found  in  this  or  \ 
that  word  of  Jesus  or  in  anti-social  individualism; 
it  is  rather  to  be  found  in  the  spiritual  sympathies 
and  tendencies  of  men  and  women  who  are  indis- 
solubly  members  of  social  groups.  The  moral 


RELIGION   AND  WAR  IO5 

values  which  go  to  make  up  the  ideals  of  these 
groups  are  never  absolute  but  always  relative.  They 
are  truly  Christian  in  the  proportion  they  tend  to 
express  the  fundamental  faith  and  principles  of 
Jesus.  The  present  issue  is  not  between  nations 
equally  ready  to  be  shown  the  way  to  give  justice, 
but  between  nations  one  group  of  which  is  following 
Caesar  and  the  other  of  which  is  defending  institu- 
tions embodying  a  developing  appreciation  of  the 
ideals  set  forth  by  Jesus.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  conscientious  objector  is  in  danger  of  de- 
stroying the  very  idealism  which,  with  the  spirit  of 
the  early  martyrs,  he  professes. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  Jesus  is  love,  not 
his  own  special  application  of  this  love  to  the  par- 
ticular duties  of  those  preaching  love.  The  sayings 
of  Jesus  dealing  with  non-resistance  were  never 
brought  by  him  into  the  political  field.  They  were 
intended  by  him  to  direct  the  action  of  his  followers 
in  putting  the  principle  of  love  into  operation. 
When  his  disciples  went  forth  to  preach  the  triumph 
of  human  brotherhood  they  would  be  setting  forth 
ideals  which  interfered  with  certain  privileges  and 
customs  and  institutions  of  the  world  in  which  they 
lived.  They  would  undoubtedly  meet  with  perse- 
cution. They  were  not  to  undertake  to  convert  men 


IO6  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

to  love  by  appeal  to  force,  nor  were  they  to  seek 
to  revenge  themselves  upon  their  persecutors.  All 
this  is  beyond  question  the  true  attitude  of  the  Chris- 
tian. You  cannot  make  men  brotherly  by  terror- 
ization,  neither  can  you  spread  the  principle  of  love 
by  hatred  and  vengeance. 

Even  in  the  larger  field  of  national  life  this  is 
true.  The  enforced  Christianization  of  heathen 
tribes  like  that  of  the  Saxons  by  Charlemagne  and 
the  Prussians  by  the  Teutonic  Knights  has  not 
served  to  develop  the  moral  impulses  that  have 
sprung  from  the  work  of  modern  foreign  missions. 
A  complete  appraisal  of  German  Christianity  cannot 
overlook  the  effect  of  the  brutality  that  attended  the 
conversion  of  the  tribes  that  have  united  in  the 
German  people. 

Back  of  its  specific  application  is  the  principle  of 
love  itself.  Love  is  a  way  of  treating  other  people. 
Jesus  grounds  its  finality  in  its  likeness  to  the  moral 
nature  of  God.  It  is  not  a  formula  but  social  ac- 
tion. In  the  case  of  individuals  it  involves  much 
more  than  good  nature  or  submission  to  injustice. 
We  recognize  this  in  civil  affairs  where  laws  are  a 
more  or  less  successful  attempt  to  organize  social 
action  in  accord  with  the  principle  formulated  by 
Kant:  "Act  so  as  to  use  humanity,  whether  in 


RELIGION   AND  WAR  1 07 

your  own  person  or  in  the  person  of  another,  always 
as  an  end,  never  as  a  means."  Obviously  the  moral 
problems  set  a  community  which  endeavors  to  put 
the  principle  of  brotherhood  into  operation  are  vastly 
more  complicated  than  the  pacifist  chooses  to  see. 
The  development  of  civilization  proceeds  gradu- 
ally, by  the  embodiment  of  ideals  in  human  institu- 
tions. These  institutions  which  guarantee  personal 
liberty,  the»  right  of  initiative,  democracy  in  the  sense 
of  a  people's,  right  to  control  its  own  affairs,  exist 
as  an  exceedingly  precious  heritage  for  succeeding 
generations.  They  increasingly  embody  the  giving 
of  justice,  the  social  synonym  of  the  love  Jesus 
taught  and  embodied.  They  must  be  preserved  if 
morality  is  to  be  preserved.  To  submit  passively 
to  their  destruction  is  a  violation  of  the  fundamental 
principle  of  brotherhood.  Society  recognizes  this 
clearly  enough  in  its  attempt  to  protect  itself  from 
evil  minded  men  like  thieves,  adulterers,  and  op- 
pressors of  their  kind.  The  decision  as  to  whether 
a  citizen  shall  undertake  such  protection  is  not  a 
matter  of  individual  likes  and  dislikes  but  of  social 
obligation.  The  fact  that  as  human  society  grows 
more  responsive  to  ideals  of  justice  and  fraternity, 
the  protection  of  the  finer  institutions  of  human  wel- 
fare becomes  increasingly  conventional  and  so  less 


IO8  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

in  need  of  reliance  upon  force,  serves  only  to  ob- 
scure the  fundamental  necessity  of  a  society's  being 
able  to  offer  protection  to  its  members  and  suc- 
cessors if  institutions  born  of  justice  are  endangered. 

refusal  to  undertake  the  duty  of  guaranteeing  such 
protection,  whatever  may  be  its  alleged  ethical  justi- 
fication, is  in  reality  an  ant i- fraternal  act.  While 
we  must  oppose  every  illegitimate  appeal  to  force, 
all  unintelligent  treatment  of  criminals,  the  hide- 
ousness  of  mob  violence  and  the  excesses  of  puni- 
tive justice,  the  basic  fact  still  remains:  for  the 
benefit  of  society  love  must  protect  institutions 
which  embody  and  preserve  its  own  progress. 
When  a  nation  which  despises  love  as  effeminacy 
and  honors  the  "  will  to  power  "  attacks  those  in- 
stitutions, there  is  only  one  duty  before  nations  who 
love  peace.  They  must  exhaust  all  efforts  to  settle 
international  difficulties  by  arbitration  and  moral  ap- 
peal; but  if  these  fail  they  must  protect  justice  and 
liberty  by  force.  To  do  otherwise  would  be  dis- 
loyalty to  those  men  and  women  of  the  future  for 
whom  we  are  trustees  of  a  heritage  of  justice  and 
liberty. 

If  we  would  apply  the  teaching  of  Jesus  to  na- 
tional action  we  must  hold  fast  to  the  principle  of 
good  neighborliness. 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  IOQ 

It  is  not  always  safe  to  build  hypotheses  around  a 
parable,  but  at  least  it  is  as  legitimate  as  are  some 
interpretations  to  which  the  parables  have  been  sub- 
jected. Let  us  suppose  the  Good  Samaritan  had 
arrived  while  the  robbers  were  attacking  their  vic- 
tim. What  should  he  have  done  to  merit  the  ap- 
proval of  Jesus? 

In  the  first  place,  he  might  have  done  nothing. 
His  interest  might  have  been  highly  scientific.  He 
might  have  watched  the  technique  of  the  robbers, 
the  way  in  which  they  stripped  their  victim,  the  way 
in  which  they  disappeared.  If  he  had  been  thor- 
oughly modern  he  might  then  have  made  a  study 
of  their  thumb  marks  so  as  to  be  able  to  identify 
the  perpetrators  of  similar  robberies  in  the  future. 
Then  after  he  had  taken  the  necessary  notes  he  might 
have  cared  for  the  wounded  traveler. 

Can  any  one  hold  that  this  would  be  an  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  neighborliness  ? 

Or,  the  Good  Samaritan,  when  he  came  upon  the 
traveler  struggling  with  the  robbers,  might  have 
said  to  himself,  "  Here  is  a  providential  opportunity 
to  recoup  myself  from  losses  in  business/'  And 
so  he  might  have  taken  the  traveler's  baggage  and 
the  robbers'  baggage  and  gone  on  his  way  to 
Jericho. 


HO  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Would  Jesus  have  told  the  lawyer  to  go  and  do 
likewise  ? 

Or,  he  might  have  said,  "  This  is  a  moment  to 
call  a  conference  which  shall  vote  measures  that 
shall  police  the  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  so 
that  there  shall  be  no  robbers."  Would  such  action, 
necessary  as  it  might  be  at  other  times,  have  been 
a  practical  expression  of  neighborliness  ? 

Or,  the  Good  Samaritan  might  have  said,  "  This 
is  certainly  a  sad  occasion,  but  my  obligation  as  a 
Good  Samaritan  is  one  of  amelioration.  I  will 
therefore  find  a  shady  place  where  I  may  wait  until 
the  robbers  finish  their  work,  and  then  I  shall  be 
ready  to  care  for  the  wounded  man  and  perform  the 
other  duties  which  are  expected  of  Good  Samari- 
tans." 

Can  any  sane  man  think  that  Jesus  would  have 
advised  such  conduct?  Would  not  the  very  prin- 
ciple of  love  and  desire  to  help  a  man  in  dan- 
ger, the  very  spirit  of  Calvary  itself,  have  led  this 
man  to  help  the  unfortunate  traveler  defend  him- 
self? 

Let  us  get  this  principle  of  sacrificial  social- 
mindedness  clear.  Once  grasped,  the  method  in 
which  it  is  expressed  is  a  matter  of  intelligence. 

Love  is  not  to  be  limited  to  Red  Cross  service. 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  III 

Such  sacrificial  social-mindedness  as  the  Good  Sa- 
maritan might  have  exhibited  is  not  militarism. 
Just  how  far  we  should  interfere  in  other  people's 
quarrels,  how  far  we  should  use  our  resources  to 
protect  the  defenseless,  how  far  we  should  under- 
take to  erect  proper  social  defenses  which  would 
make  Good  Samaritans  unnecessary,  must  be  left 
to  the  wisdom  which  our  trained  experts  may  show 
us. 

But  no  man  is  a  Christian  who  believes  that  any- 
thing injurious  is  right.  No  man  has  the  spirit  of 
Christ  who  is  content  to  permit  wrong  to  seek  its 
victims.  Personal  comfort,  life  itself,  is  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  giving  of  justice,  for  which 
Jesus  himself  died. 

•  So  in  the  case  of  a  nation  that  sees  the  world 
and  itself  attacked  by  another  nation  bent  upon 
terrorizing  its  neighbors  into  subjection  and  de-  \ 
stroying  the  most  precious  institutions  of  civiliza- 
tion. Pacifism  under  such  circumstances  is  anti- 
social, a  misguided  idealism  if  not  transcendental- 
ized  selfishness.  The  duty  which  a  nation  owes  to 
a  world  as  well  as  to  itself  and  its  future  compels 
it  to  protect  its  institutions  and  its  very  existence 
against  the  assault  of  a  national  highwayman.  And 
this  duty  must  infiltrate  the  moral  action  of  indi- 


112  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

viduals.     Christians  are  not  insulated  individuals; 
they  are  citizens. 

This  is  the  real  spirit  with  which  Christians  must 
approach  the  question  of  a  war.  Against  our  likes, 
our  hopes,  our  ideals,  we  fight  because  we  love  our 
race.  War  born  of  a  perverted  patriotism,  war  for 
the  sake  of  national  aggrandizement  at  the  expense 
of  other  nations  is  un-Christian,  no  matter  how  much 
it  may  masquerade  under  appeals  to  the  God  of 
Gideon  and  of  David.  But  the  very  essence  of  a 
Christian  patriotism  appears  in  the  defense  not  of 
national  institutions  as  such,  but  of  institutions 
which  are  increasingly  if  not  completely  Christian. 
Love,  which  is  the  heart  of  the  Christian  message, 
cannot  permit  a  nation  to  remain  neutral  while  the 
well-being  of  other  nations  is  endangered.  The 
highest  sacrifice  which  love  demands  is  a  frank  recog- 
nition of  the  necessity  of  abandoning  the  ideals  of 
peace  when  peace  involves  the  suffering  of  others. 
The  true  Christian  patriot  at  the  present  moment  is 
in  fact  saying  to  certain  ideals,  "  You  must  for  the 
moment  retire  from  the  scene.  I  have  a  desper- 
ately nasty  mess  to  clean  up.  I  am  not  responsible 
for  the  situation,  but  you  are  powerless  to  help.  It 
is  a  choice  between  defending  institutions  which 


RELIGION   AND   WAR  113 

guarantee  your  existence  and  permitting  these  in- 
stitutions to  go  down  to  destruction."  And  my  own 
conviction  is  clear  that  such  self-sacrifice  in  the  in- 
terest of  making  permanent  the  achievement  of 
peace  and  justice  is  the  most  idealistic  service  a  man 
or  a  nation  can  render  the  world.  Refusal  at  any 
personal  cost  to  partake  in  a  war  of  oppression,  of 
conquest,  of  international  looting,  is  truly  Chris- 
tian. Conscientious  objectors  in  nations  bent  upon 
waging  such  a  war,  are  worthy  of  a  martyr's  crown. 
But  not  to  share  in  a  war  of  defense  of  justice  is 
to  distort  both  patriotism  and  religion.  A  nation 
suffering  and  struggling  vicariously  is  furthering 
Christian  morality.  It  faces  new  moral  crises,  it 
is  true.  It  must  not  be  permitted  to  descend  into 
habitual  militarism.  But  it  demands  our  support. 
In  furthering  its  success  we  rightly  know  again  the 
patriotism  that  is  more  than  aggressive  nationalism. 
In  full  justice,  may  we  cry  to  a  nation  we  see  is  more 
than  wealth  or  territory, 

"What  were  our  lives  without  thee? 

What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee? 
We  reck  not  what  we  give  thee, 

We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee, 
But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will  dare!" 


114  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

IV 

Ideals  work  when  they  draw  men  toward  them- 
selves.    But  such  approach  is  registered  not  in  ab- 
stract theories,  but  in  social  accomplishment.     To 
protect  such  accomplishment  in  the  interest  of  the 
still  more  complete  embodiment  of  ideals  is  loyalty 
not  only  to  a  nation,  but  to  our  religion.     In  such 
a  situation,  true  patriots  find  in  religion  no  loyalty 
like  that  felt  to  a  monarch  who  seeks  to  exploit  God 
and  humanity  in  order  to  justify  his  own  ambition 
at  the  expense  of  others.     Loathing  war,  determined 
to  end  war  by  the  regeneration  of  the  forces  that 
shape  national  action,  such  patriots  dedicate  them- 
selves to  a  national  service  which  gets  its  value 
not  from  uncritical  loyalty  to  a  nation  but  from 
loyalty  to  a  nation  which  has  consecrated  itself  to  the 
good  of  humanity.     It  is  this  sort  of  patriotism  that 
we  dare  call   Christian.     "  We  hope,"   a  well-in- 
tending body  of  Christians  once  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
"  that  God  is  on  our  side."     "  I  am  not  much  con- 
cerned," said  Mr.  Lincoln  "to  know  whether  God 
is  on  our  side.     What  I  want  to  know  is  whether 
we  are  on  God's  side."     With  this  desire  American 
patriotism  may  now  face  its  terrible  task.     We  pray 
for  the  victory  of  our  arms,  not  because  we  demand 


RELIGION   AND  WAR  115 

that  God  shall  give  victory  to  our  country  whether 
we  are  right  or  wrong,  but  because  we  are  con- 
vinced that  the  cause  for  which  we  struggle  is  more 
precious  than  a  peace  bought  at  the  expense  of  the 
world's  warfare;  that  the  cause  for  which  we  fight 
is  God's  cause  as  we  know  it  revealed  both  in  the 
life  and  the  ideals  of  Jesus  and  in  the  unmistakable 
tendencies  of  social  evolution. 

A  religion  which  will  keep  its  followers  from 
committing  themselves  to  the  support  of  such  pa- 
triotism is  either  too  aesthetic  for  humanity's  actual 
needs,  too  individualistic  to  be  social,  or  too  disloyal 
to  be  tolerated. 


LECTURE  IV 

THE  SERVICE  OF  RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM 

If  patriotism  can  be  justified  because  of  the  serv- 
ice one's  nation  can  render  the  world,  no  argument 
is  needed  to  show  that  it  must  rest  on  a  national 
morality.  In  the  interest  of  such  morality  religion 
must  serve  patriotism  in  the  future  more  wisely  than 
in  the  past.  True,  Christianity  has  insisted  that 
those  who  are  saved  ought  not  to  steal  or  murder 
or  commit  adultery;  but  as  has  already  appeared, 
the  ecclesiastical  doctrines  of  salvation  have  shared 
in  a  general  misapprehension  of  the  moral  control 
that  lies  in  group-life.  Salvation  as  the  supreme  end 
of  religion  has  been  presented  as  a  rescue  from  a 
world  that  is  corrupt  and  hopeless.  The  bright 
hopes  of  a  blissful  eternity  have  been  presented 
against  a  background  of  social  pessimism.  Until 
our  own  day  there  has  been  no  serious  attempt  to 
apply  the  principles  of  Jesus  as  distinguished  from 
Hebrew  legislation  to  economic  life,  or  to  conceive 
of  nations  as  under  moral  restraints  in  their  deal- 

116 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION    TO    PATRIOTISM         117 

ings  with  each  other.  War  has  all  but  never  been 
condemned.  The  conquest  of  weak  nations  has 
been  regarded  as  an  evidence  of  divine  favor,  and 
the  God  of  battles  has  been  the  only  God  that  kings 
have  known.  Christians  have  always  fought. 
The  extension  of  the  principles  of  Jesus  into  group 
morality  is  so  modern  as  even  yet  to  be  vehemently 
assailed  as  an  abandonment  of  the  "  simple  gospel." 
As  the  inspirer  of  international  morality,  a  church- 
Christianity  has  been  all  but  negligible.  The  leaven 
was  prepared  but  men  have  seldom  had  the  good 
sense  to  hide  it  in  the  meal.  Only  in  those  nations 
in  which  there  has  been  a  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  the  people  and  the  organization  of  governments 
responsible  to  the  people, —  each  an  expression  of 
fundamental  Christian  idealism  —  has  there  been 
any  development  of  a  social  morality  capable  of  in- 
ternational application. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  Christianity  has  had  no 
social  influence.  It  has  had  decided  social  influence. 
The  churches  have  been  laboratories  in  which  in- 
dividualistic morality  has  been  developed  and  where 
democracy  has  been  to  some  extent  learned.  How 
significant  have  been  these  lessons  in  Anglo-Ameri- 
can politics  has  already  been  pointed  out.  It  is  no 
small  achievement  to  have  restrained  economic 


Il8  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

pressure  by  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  given 
moral  sanction  to  marriage,  and  elevated  the  posi- 
tion of  women.  But  the  influence  of  Christianity  as 
a  church  religion  has  by  no  means  been  the  sole 
cause  of  social  reforms.  Other  forces  have  co- 
operated and  at  times  have  been  obliged  to  over- 
come the  influence  of  a  church  championing  vested 
economic  and  political  privileges.  The  rise  of  public 
morality  is  altogether  too  complicated  a  process  to 
be  credited  to  any  single  cause.  Judged  from  its 
literature,  its  formulas  and  its  teaching,  the  church 
even  in  our  own  day  has  not  frankly  faced  the 
problems  of  group  morality.  It  is  only  within  re- 
cent years  that  the  inter-relation  even  of  churches 
themselves  has  been  placed  on  an  approximately 
moral  basis.  For  centuries  whenever  a  Christian 
group  has  obtained  control  of  a  state,  persecution 
has  followed.  Lutheran  Prussia  repressed  the 
Crypto-Calvinists  with  imprisonment  and  death; 
Calvinists  of  Holland  persecuted  the  Arminians; 
the  church  of  England  has  executed  Catholics,  Bap- 
tists and  Unitarians.  Until  the  rise  of  the  American 
nation,  religious  liberty  was  unknown  and  the  church 
and  the  state  were  not  separated.  It  is  no  wonder, 
therefore,  that  if  Christian  groups  could  not  live 
together  without  violence,  nations  should  have  lived 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         IIQ 

with  even  greater  disregard  of  moral  ideals,  and 
that  international  law  should  have  been  a  matter 
in  which  Christian  teachers  were  only  incidentally 
concerned.  If  the  salt  lacked  savor,  how  could 
it  be  salted? 

But  we  already  see  the  rise  of  a  simpler  Chris- 
tianity and  a  truer  perception  of  the  scope  of  Chris- 
tian moral  ideals.  Our  own  generation  has  been  a 
pioneer  in  this  extension  of  moral  imperatives  to 
groups.  The  conception  of  Christianity  as  some- 
thing richer  and  more  vital  than  theological  pre- 
cision has  been  both  the  outcome  and  the  cause  of 
an  incipient  social  morality.  So  far  from  being  dis- 
couraged in  the  present  crisis,  we  should  be  full  of 
hope.  To  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  this  is  the 
first  war  that  has  avowedly  been  fought  for  the 
purpose  of  ending  war.  Therein  lies  hope. 

The  history  of  the  international  relations  of  de- 
mocracies is  a  tribute  to  the  change  that  is  coming 
into  our  conception  of  Christianity.  We  have  un- 
fortunately to  admit  that  this  truer  conception  of 
the  Christian  faith  is  by  no  means  universal.  Too 
many  of  our  churches  are  still  in  the  control  of  pro- 
fessional churchmen  whose  vision  is  sectarian  and 
who  think  that  the  gospel  has  no  place  in  social  af- 
fairs beyond  the  maintenance  of  individual  respecta- 


I2O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

bility.  Just  at  present  forces  of  reaction  are  espe- 
cially in  evidence  working  mightily  to  keep  Chris- 
tianity within  the  confines  set  by  the  past,  preferring 
an  infallible  Pope  or  an  inerrant  Bible  to  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  and  the  ideals  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  But 
never  before  were  there  so  many  evidences  of  the 
rise  of  a  true  Christianity.  Denominations  are  ceas- 
ing their  internecine  strife  and  are  organizing  Fed- 
erations and  World  Conferences.  The  bankruptcy 
of  theological  orthodoxy  as  an  agency  to  prevent 
war  forces  thoughtful  men  to  reconsider  the  real 
place  of  Christianity  in  our  social  order.  We  are 
repatriating  Jesus  in  Christianity.  Out  of  the  Cal- 
vary of  the  present  war  will  come  the  resurrection 
of  a  faith  above  shibboleths,  born  of  a  tested  con- 
fidence in  God,  in  Jesus,  and  human  progress. 

When  we  ask  how  this  should  and  will  affect  pa- 
triotism as  the  expression  of  a  national  loyalty, 
we  are  passing  from  history  to  prophecy.  Yet  even 
here  we  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  hope  unregulated  by 
facts.  Historical  tendencies  become  our  guide. 
Genuine  religious  faith  does  not  attempt  to  rehabili- 
tate the  past,  but  to  reconstruct  the  future.  Super- 
ficial optimism  has  no  place  in  such  forecasts,  for 
the  God  we  must  worship  is  not  the  God  of  a  fin- 
ished world,  but  a  God  who  cooperates  with  man- 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         121 

kind  in  the  production  of  a  new  world.  From  faith 
in  such  a  God  springs  new  confidence  in  the  pos- 
sible influence  of  a  genuinely  Christian  spirit  in 
national  affairs.  The  new  world  has  not  been  born, 
but  there  is  still  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of 
prenatal  influences. 


A  religion  fit  for  democracy  will  ennoble  patriot- 
ism* by  giving  moral  direction  to  the  spiritual  life  of  a 
nation. 

As  the  Archbishop  of  York  has  admirably  pointed 
out,  the  war  is  teaching  us  the  power  of  ideas.  Un- 
fortunately in  too  much  education  ideas  have  been  at 
a  discount.  For  a  generation  and  more  our  schools 
and  colleges  have  been  increasingly  emphasizing  sci- 
entific attitudes  and  methods.  Little  by  little  we 
have  seen  the  old  humanistic  education  give  way  to 
the  study  of  the  physical  forces  of  nature.  Lan- 
guages have  gradually  been  forced  to  retreat  from 
their  earlier  primacy,  and  in  their  place  has  come 
a  study  of  phenomena  that  can  be  understood  with- 
out recourse  to  personality.  It  would  perhaps  be 
too  much  to  say  that  our  education  has  become  ma- 
terialistic, but  it  has  certainly  grown  less  idealistic. 


122  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Technical  educational  discussions  are  largely  con- 
cerned with  pedagogical  mechanics.  The  test  of  a 
successful  grade  teacher  has  been  frankly  said  to 
be  her  ability  to  prepare  pupils  to  move  into  the 
next  grade.  Muscular  efforts  in  handwriting,  the 
height  of  school-room  desks,  the  length  of  school- 
periods,  have  been  given  elaborate  attention.  Edu- 
cation for  making  a  living  has  increasingly  been 
emphasized.  Educational  foundations  have  been 
devoting  themselves  to  furthering  the  science  of 
medicine,  chemistry,  and  biological  research.  Mech- 
anistic interpretations  of  life  have  been  developed 
until  psychology  has  become  a  matter  largely  of 
nerves  and  muscles,  life  a  physical  response  to  phys- 
ical forces,  and  history  a  by-product  of  climates 
and  of  geography.  Even  socialism,  the  one  out- 
standing movement  which  claims  to  emphasize  so- 
cial forces,  has  all  but  delivered  itself  over  to  eco- 
nomic materialism. 

Such  a  description  of  educational  methods  is,  of 
course,  subject  to  many  exceptions  and  consider- 
able modification.  No  one  can  deny  the  importance 
of  the  various  subjects  involved.  But  such  facts 
raise  the  question  whether  we  have  been  moving  in 
altogether  the  true  direction.  Are  not  ideals  also 
of  educational  importance?  The  war  has  made  us 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         123 

realize  that  a  difference  in  educational  systems  is 
largely  responsible  for  the  difference  in  the  patriot- 
isms of  Germany  and  the  democratic  states.  Ideas 
which  make  war  desirable  have  been  built  into  the 
German  soul.  The  materialistic  tendencies  of  Ger- 
man education  have  been  accompanied  by  a  highly 
systematized  manipulation  of  German  intelligence 
by  the  state.  To  German  school  children,  patriot- 
ism has  become  a  form  of  national  religion,  and  re- 
ligion a  phase  of  education  in  patriotism.  The 
German  Kultur  is  not  civilization  in  the  noble  sense 
given  that  word  by  French  writers,  but  a  training 
in  the  worship  of  national  institutions,  language  and 
literature,  made  efficient  in  social  organization  by 
technical  accomplishments  in  physical  science.  Lib- 
erty and  equality  are  not  elements  in  Kultur  and 
form  no  part  of  German  education. 

A  nation  filled  with  megalomania  has  so  organ- 
ized its  education  as  to  insure  a  national  spirit  that 
approves  the  subjection  of  the  masses  to  the  priv- 
ileged classes.  Ninety  per  cent,  of  German  youth 
are  debarred  by  the  educational  system  from  any 
other  sort  of  training.  They  are  trained  to  obey 
the  other  ten  per  cent.  In  such  a  social  order  re- 
ligion has  carried  forward  the  national  ideal.  It 
has  been  made  a  part  of  national  education,  giving 


124  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

sanctity  to  a  patriotism  that  knows  no  morality  be- 
yond national  boundaries,  and  conferring  no  ability 
to  reform  a  government  that  does  not  derive  its 
authority  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  Such 
a  patriotism  has  never  been  taught  the  ideals  of 
Jesus,  and  in  war  is  subject  to  small  moral  re- 
straints. It  exploits  the  technical  abilities  of  a  na- 
tion to  further  national  pride  and  the  exploiting  of 
subject  peoples.  The  religion  it  demands  is  na- 
tional religion.  "  When  we  talk  frankly  and  boldly 
about  the  German  God,"  says  Baron  Hans  von  Wol- 
zogen  in  the  Berlin  Post,  "  what  we  mean  to  ex- 
press thereby  is  the  power  of  the  divine  action  within 
the  German  soul,  for  only  in  the  German  soul  is 
centered  the  kingdom  of  God." 

A  religion  that  thus  yields  itself  to  the  will  of 
the  state  is  certainly  far  enough  from  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Jesus.  The  type  of  Christianity  it  de- 
mands and  fosters  is  that  which  writes  a  pious 
preface  to  the  articles  of  a  Holy  Alliance  and  in  the 
words  of  no  less  a  theologian  than  Wilhelm  Her- 
mann likens  its  faith  to  that  of  Mohammedanism. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  so  far  as  we  know  it  is  silent 
as  to  the  horrors  of  Belgium,  Serbia,  Poland,  and 
Armenia,  except  when  it  issues  statements  justi- 
fying their  perpetration.  Such  a  religion  together 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         125 

with  the  patriotism  it  would  sanctify,  leaves  Ger- 
many no  hope  for  a  Christian  patriotism  until  Ger- 
man Christians,  rejecting  Caesar,  become  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus. 

If  German  educational  methods  enforcing  such 
ideas  of  religion  and  patriotism  were  limited  to  the 
German  people  itself,  their  menace  would  be  suf- 
ficiently great.  But  they  have  not  been  so  limited. 
German  patriotism  has  been  as  aggressive  in 
the  world  of  ideas  as  in  its  search  for  annexations 
and  indemnities.  As  in  their  battles  Germans  have 
begun  their  assaults  by  poisonous  gas  attacks,,  so 
during  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  has  our  educa- 
tional system  been  subject  to  a  German  attack  upon 
the  ideals  of  democracy.  Few  teachers  in  our  uni- 
versities have  escaped  the  miasma  of  German  Kultur. 
Our  sociology,  our  history,  our  political  economy, 
our  psychology,  have  all  been  learned  in  Germany 
or  markedly  affected  by  the  pre-supposition  of  the 
German  teaching.  We  have  listened  to  attacks  upon 
the  inefficiency  of  our  institutions,  the  crudity  of 
our  science,  the  amateurism  of  our  history.  Ger- 
many has  systematically  undertaken  to  undermine 
the  American  patriotism  of  American  citizens  of 
German  descent.  The  propaganda  of  anti- American 
ideas  has  magnified  Teutonism,  belittled  American- 


126  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

ism,  forced  the  German  language  upon  public 
schools,  organized  societies  to  strengthen  the  alle- 
giance of  American  citizens  to  a  German  Father- 
land. 

But  at  this  point  a  caution  is  to  be  uttered.  In 
view  of  this  attempt  to  educate  a  nation  in  self- 
depreciation  it  is  not  surprising  that  we  are  being 
warned  against  scholarship  that  is  in  any  way  allied 
with  Germany.  But  we  need  to  preserve  our  com- 
mon sense  while  we  accomplish  the  destruction  of 
anti-American  forces.  In  an  assault  upon  Ger- 
man propaganda  every  good  citizen  should  join. 
But  scientific  methods  in  education  and  religious 
scholarship  are  not  false  because  Germans  have 
used  them.  We  do  not  abandon  military  science 
because  Germans  exploit  its  results.  Science  is  not 
nationalistic.  In  all  departments  it  has  been  as  much 
the  creation  of  Englishmen  and  Frenchmen  as  of 
Germans.  Scientific  method  is  the  joint  product 
of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  entire  world.  To 
abandon  it  because  of  German  political  propaganda 
would  be  insanity. 

Equally  true  is  it  insanity  to  abandon  theological 
science  because  of  German  misuse  of  the  Bible. 
Champions  of  reaction  and  obscurantism  declare 
that  the  war  is  the  outcome  of  German  higher  criti- 


SERVICE   OF  RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         127 

cism.  Germans,  they  say,  first  undertook  to  break 
down  faith  in  the  Bible  in  order  that  they  might 
break  down  the  peace  of  the  world.  The  only  hope 
that  is  left  to  the  church  of  Christ  is  a  return  to 
the  theories  of  verbal  inspiration,  and  a  belief  in 
the  end  of  the  world  at  the  speedy  coming  of 
Christ ! 

Nothing  could  be  more  truly  theological  dema- 
gogism.  The  theology  of  the  Kaiser  is  not  the 
theology  of  the  modern  theological  world.  It  is 
the  theology  of  orthodoxy  and  of  confessionalism. 
The  God  he  sets  forth  is  not  the  God  of  Jesus.  He 
is  not  the  God  of  the  prophets.  He  is  the  God  of 
the  persecutor.  He  is  the  God  to  whom  Luther  ap- 
pealed when  he  justified  the  slaughter  of  the  peas- 
ants; the  God  summoned  to  justify  the  imprison- 
ment of  Grotius,  the  persecution  of  Crypto-Calvin- 
ists,  the  execution  of  John  of  Barneveldt.  As  such 
he  is  peculiarly  the  property  of  the  state.  Professor 
Ostwald  never  said  a  truer  word  than  when  he  de- 
clared "  in  our  country  God  the  Father  is  reserved 
for  the  personal  use  of  the  Emperor." 

The  theology  which  is  preached  by  all  reaction- 
aries is  the  theology  which  has  justified  war.  It  is 
born  of  a  misuse  of  the  Scripture,  an  unwillingness 
to  face  the  moral  demands  of  Jesus,  and  a  denial 


128  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

of  the  supremacy  in  history  of  a  God  of  love  and 
justice. 

Historical  criticism  has  not  given  rise  to  German 
worship  of  force.  It  has  opened  the  way  to  a  true 
understanding  of  how  to  do  justice,  to  love  mercy, 
and  to  walk  humbly  before  a  God  who  is  the  God  of 
Amos  and  Hosea,  of  Isaiah  and  Jesus. 

The  effort  to  identify  the  historical  study  of  the 
Bible  with  German  Kultur  not  only  displays  ig- 
norance as  to  both  Kultur  and  theological  science, 
but  it  tends  to  elevate  a  theory  of  inspiration  above 
a  faith  in  the  God  of  law  and  love,  and  limits  the 
moral  power  of  Jesus  to  the  rescue  of  individuals 
from  vulgar  sins. 

Such  religious  teaching  as  is  now  organizing  pro- 
phetic conferences  and  damning  an  honest  and  in- 
telligent use  of  the  Scripture  is  ruining  the  church 
and  hindering  the  spread  of  a  genuinely  Christian 
civilization. 

Such  propaganda  so  misuses  the  Bible  as  to  make 
it  a  menace  to  genuinely  religious  faith.  To  iden- 
tify it  with  piety  is  to  make  piety  pre-Christian. 
To  demand  that  the  doctrines  which  it  draws  from  its 
perversions  of  inspiration  shall  become  the  domi- 
nant rule  of  the  church  is  to  make  it  certain  that  the 
church  will  become  composed  of  groups  of  men 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         129 

and  women  who  are  a  hindrance  to  the  spread  of 
the  gospel  of  Jesus.  Literalism  threatens  the  very 
heart,  not  only  of  the  Christian  religion,  but  of 
civilization.  A  theology  under  which  the  pres- 
ent war  was  possible  holds  out  no  promise  of  lasting 
peace. 

Only  he  who  approaches  the  Scripture  in  sympathy 
with  the  historical  method  is  capable  of  intelligently 
applying  its  revelation  of  God  to  a  travailing  world. 
Any  one  who  knows  the  actual  bearing  of  historical 
criticism  upon  our  religion,  needs  no  arguments  to 
prove  that  the  properly  scientific  historical  approach 
to  the  study  of  religion  is  the  great  hope  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  future.  Theological  science  is 
far  enough  from  being  German  propaganda. 

The  real  significance  of  the  Germanizing  of  the 
world's  thought  lies  not  in  its  use  —  or  misuse  —  of 
scientific  methods.  It  lies  rather  in  a  debilitating 
skepticism  regarding  our  national  ideals  and  the 
applicability  of  the  principles  of  Christianity  to  social 
affairs.  True  Christianity  is  as  compatible  with 
scientific  method  as  it  is  incompatible  with  political 
autocracy.  The  German  mind  has  one  supreme  test 
for  all  applications  of  the  principles  of  Jesus  to  the 
social  order :  does  such  an  attempt  tend  towards  de- 
mocracy with  its  recognition  of  the  necessity  of 


I3O  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

equal  opportunity  for  the  individual ;  or  does  it  tend 
towards  an  elevation  of  the  state  as  the  end  of  indi- 
vidual life  ?  Only  that  which  conforms  to  the  second 
alternative  is  to  be  accepted.  German  religion  could 
not  be  other  than  anti-social,  for  the  development  of 
the  highest  social  ideals  will  abolish  privilege  and 
superimposed  authority.  The  God  of  Jesus  would 
repudiate  responsibility  for  the  authority  of  the 
Kaiser.  But  such  anti-Christianity  is  not  born  of 
scientific  method  but  of  the  national  spirit  that  re- 
fuses to  apply  scientifically  the  results  gained  by  the 
method  to  the  needs  of  men  and  women.  The  con- 
trast which  we  have  repeatedly  discovered  between 
German  and  democratic  patriotism  must  control  dis- 
cussion of  the  relations  of  religion  to  national  ideals. 
Is  Christianity  to  perpetuate  autocracy,  or  is  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  to  be  a  leaven  for  the  transformation 
of  society  in  the  interest  of  democracy  ?  The  world- 
situation  shows  that  the  only  hope  of  a  Christianized 
patriotism  is  to  be  found  in  those  countries  where 
the  people  themselves  are  free  to  embody  the  ideals 
of  Jesus  in  social  institutions ;  where  reform  springs 
from  a  socialized  regard  for  justice  rather  than  from 
feudal  benevolence ;  where  the  church  like  the  people 
is  free  to  express  its  conviction  of  the  need  of  social 
change;  and  where  political  life  is  free  to  express 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM 

;  popular  ideals  in  social  transformation.  None  of 
these  possibilities  are  permitted  German  churches  by 
the  German  state. 

As  representatives  of  the  democratic  patriotism, 
Americans  are  in  particular  need  of  a  Christianized 
public  opinion.  As  already  has  been  said,  our  de- 
mocracy has  been  born  of  our  religious  liberty,  and 
our  active  Christian  conscience  has  played  no  small 
role  in  the  maintenance  of  peace  between  ourselves 
and  other  nations.  But  we  need  to  go  further  if 
our  national  life  is  to  meet  the  crisis  in  world  rela- 
tions which  will  follow  the  war.  National  policy 
will  embody  our  best  ideals  only  as  those  ideals  spring 
from  our  inner  social  life.  International  justice 
must  be  grounded  in  domestic  justice.  Social  serv- 
ice in  the  sense  of  caring  for  the  unfortunate  through 
institutions  of  charity  is  possible  in  an  autocracy, 
but  social  transformation  through  establishing  a 
genuine  fraternity  is  politically  possible  only  where 
there  is  democracy.  To  recognize  this  possibility  is 
to  demand  the  spread  of  justice.  If  our  nation  is  to 
be  a  plutocracy,  it  will  be  no  more  democratic  than 
an  autocracy.  If  the  rights  of  our  working  men 
are  to  be  gained  only  through  more  or  less  developed 
revolution  which  forces  privileges  from  those  who 
are  unwilling  to  surrender  them,  our  Christian 


132  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

morality  is  certainly  weak.  The  center  of  Chris- 
tianity is  a  sacrificial  social  mindedness.  God  and 
Christ  sacrifice  for  men ;  men  must  sacrifice  for  each 
other.  The  gospel  appeals  to  those  who  have  en- 
joyed privileges  denied  their  less  fortunate  fellows. 
The  war  in  bringing  us  a  clearer  insight  of  our 
fundamental  national  unity  is  helping  us  to  see  that 
justice  is  the  obverse  of  fraternity.  Moral  advance 
is  increasingly  seen  to  involve  such  concrete  matters 
as  the  housing  of  the  working  man,  the  shortening  of 
his  working  day,  the  increase  of  his  opportunity  for 
leisure  and  his  larger  share  in  the  product  of  his  own 
labor. 

The  last  twenty-five  years  have  shown  that  Chris- 
tianity has  a  social  power  far  beyond  that  of  a  mere 
incentive  to  social  amelioration.  Amelioration  it  is 
true  is  an  approach  to  justice,  but  the  creative  re- 
ligious teaching  of  the  last  quarter  century  has  been 
reshaping  patriotism  itself  into  a  devotion  to  human 
rights  championed  by  national  action.  Sometimes 
this  reconstruction  has  expended  itself  in  denuncia- 
tion of  evils  and  unlimited  criticism  of  our  life  and 
institutions.  More  than  this,  however,  it  has  shown 
itself  in  an  education  in  moral  sympathies  which 
has  hastened  the  recognition  by  the  capitalist  class 
of  its  obligations  to  the  people.  It  is  true  this  proc- 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM        133 

ess  has  still  far  to  go  before  it  reaches  its  goal.  We 
still  need  to  learn  how  to  share  privilege  intelli- 
gently. The  worth  of  the  individual  still  needs  to  be 
more  honored  than  class  privilege  and  economic 
efficiency.  Human  motives,  especially  in  the  eco- 
nomic world,  need  inspiration  for  sacrifice  in  the 
interest  of  justice.  During  the  last  few  months  we 
have  rapidly  learned  this  lesson.  We  see  clearly 
that  our  national  ideals  are  worth  fighting  for.  We 
are  beginning  to  see  that  the  virtues  which  we  de- 
mand of  a  nation  in  its  world  affairs  must  rule  a 
nation's  inner  life.  If  we  are  to  make  the  world 
safe  for  democracy,  we  must  make  our  own  nation 
more  than  politically  democratic.  The  ideals  for 
which  men  die  in  war  are  ideals  for  which  they  must 
live  in  peace. 

Here  the  Christian  religion,  freed  from  its  en- 
tangling alliances  with  metaphysics  and  ecclesiasti- 
cism,  can  be  the  great  source  of  spiritual  inspiration. 
It  fires  our  hearts  with  more  than  a  reasoned  convic- 
tion that  democracy  is  God's  will ;  it  gives  us  visions 
of  what  a  nation  should  really  be.  Because  we  are 
Christians  we  feel  in  our  national  life  the  uplift  of 
the  divine  presence ;  the  courage  which  comes  from 
a  belief  in  the  inevitability  of  God's  good  will  and 
the  supreme  value  of  human  souls. 


134  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

For  those  who  have  such  spiritual  reserves  upon 
which  to  call  in  moments  of  national  strain  and 
stress,  patriotism  ceases  to  be  primarily  a  militaristic 
virtue.  A  patriot  must  needs  often  become  a  sol- 
dier in  order  that  government  of  the  people,  for  the 
people,  and  by  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth.  But  he  needs  also  to  be  loyal  to  national 
ideals  which  will  lead  him  to  face  the  duties  set  by 
peace.  Justice  and  liberty  are  supremely  valuable 
even  when  we  do  not  go  to  war  to  protect  them. 
When  the  war  drums  sound  no  longer  there  will 
still  be  demand  for  those  who  are  ready  to  sacrifice 
their  individual  comfort  and  privilege,  it  may  be 
life  itself,  for  national  ideals.  Democracy  as  a 
phase  of  actual  concrete  living  cannot  be  indifferent 
to  the  inner  dangers  that  beset  it  from  anti-demo- 
cratic capitalism  or  an  anti-moral  materialism.  War 
itself  must  be  outgrown  through  the  moral  adjust- 
ment of  issues  from  which  wars  have  sprung.  Citi- 
zens must  believe  in  a  God  who  works  through  the 
development  of  institutions  that  give  equality  of 
opportunity  to  every  member  of  a  national  group 
and  to  nations  themselves.  The  issues  of  our  eco- 
nomic life  must  be  seen  to  be  as  exigent  as  battles 
and  the  protection  of  human  welfare  as  imperative 


SERVICE   OF  RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         1 35 

in  the  relation  of  economic  classes  as  in  the  bloody 
struggle  of  nations. 

Any  religion  that  shirks  such  duties  as  peace  pro- 
poses can  never  be  the  religion  of  the  world.  A 
pessimism  that  blinds  men's  minds  to  the  possibility 
of  ennobling  social  evolution  and  which  refuses  the 
sacrificial  devotion  of  one's  life  to  the  cause  of 
human  progress  in  days  of  peace  is  unworthy  the 
name  of  Christianity.  The  same  devotion  that  car- 
ries nations  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death 
must  not  grow  cold  as  they  rest  beside  the  still 
waters.  For  such  devotion  patriotism  needs  the  in- 
spiration that  fundamental  religion  can  give.  The 
course  of  world  events  has  reduced  all  national  issues 
to  a  choice  between  Caesar  and  Jesus.  Hitherto 
Caesar  and  the  church  have  made  common  cause. 
Formulas  of  other-worldly  salvation  have  shown 
themselves  incapable  of  elevating  patriotism  from 
the  virtue  of  the  warrior  into  devotion  to  a  better 
social  order.  In  the  religion  of  Jesus  rather  than 
in  the  religion  of  the  ecclesiastic  lies  all  hope  that 
patriotism  shall  be  transformed  from  a  belligerent 
into  a  cooperative  virtue. 


136  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

II 

Religion  is  needed  to  strengthen  the  heart  of  the 
patriot  in  days  of  national  trial. 

Strength  of  heart  and  capacity  to  endure  national 
defeat  have  always  been  given  patriots  by  their  re- 
ligious faith.  The  records  of  the  past  are  full  of 
men  and  women  who  confiding  in  a  nation's  God, 
like  the  Roman  Senator  have  never  despaired  of 
their  nation's  future.  A  Jeremiah  buying  land  in  a 
moment  of  national  eclipse;  a  William  of  Orange 
facing  the  might  of  an  arrogant  conqueror;  a  Wash- 
ington praying  in  the  snow  at  Valley  Forge ;  are  but 
examples  of  millions  of  the  men  and  women  less 
known  but  equally  trustful  amid  national  sorrow. 
The  Psalms  of  an  exiled  Hebrew ;  the  eschatology,  so 
easily  misunderstood  by  us  moderns,  of  a  Jew 
crushed  by  Syria  and  Rome;  the  stirring  words  of 
Schiller  to  a  nation  which  had  not  yet  given  itself 
over  to  international  brutality,  express  hopes  that 
have  thrilled  innumerable  nations  in  their  defeat. 
Strip  from  patriotism  its  belief  that  God  will  ulti- 
mately give  success  to  the  righteous  cause  for  which 
their  nations  fight,  and  you  have  left  only  the  lamen- 
tations of  the  conquered. 

Such  religious  faith  has  generally  clothed  itself 


SERVICE  OF  RELIGION  TO   PATRIOTISM        137 

in  the  conceptions  of  supernaturalism  but  it  is 
equally  the  possession  of  those  who  recognize  the 
unity  of  the  divine  will  and  natural  law.  Whoever 
believes  intelligently  in  God,  believes  also  in  a  divine 
will  present  in  human  affairs.  Human  history 
forecasts  the  course  of  human  progress.  Tenden- 
cies are  more  eloquent  than  scattered  events,  for 
tendencies  show  that  God  is  still  perfecting  an  un- 
finished creation.  But  the  eye  of  faith  that  thus 
seeks  to  read  the  meaning  of  the  past  must  be  single. 
National  pride  too  often  obscures  the  true  meaning 
of  history.  A  German  may  believe  that  the  world- 
spirit  finds  his  fullest  expression  in  the  Kultur  of 
Prussia,  but  he  who  believes  in  the  God  of  the  uni- 
verse rebels  against  such  provincial  conceit.  He 
dares  hope  for  a  future  that  shall  not  be  subject  to  a 
conquering  nationalism.  Out  from  the  storm  and 
stress  of  the  passing  moment  one  looks  back  over 
the  steady  progress  of  personal  values,  of  human 
rights,  of  sacrificial  justice,  and  sees  therein  the 
working  of  a  God  who  is  no  national  deity  but  the 
God  of  a  developing  humanity.  True  prophecy  does 
not  lose  itself  like  astrology  in  the  ingenious  manipu- 
lation of  facts,  but  sees  the  divine  will  operating  in 
current  events.  In  such  vision  lies  intelligent  hope 
and  a  faith  not  to  be  staggered  by  the  defeat  of 


138  PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 

righteous  causes.  Men  of  this  spirit  know  that  Cal- 
varies must  be  endured  if  resurrections  are  to  be 
enjoyed,  but  they  never  doubt  the  dawn  of  a  national 
Easter.  Time  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  inevi- 
table. To  doubt  the  ultimate,  even  though  it  be  but 
slowly  progressing,  triumph  of  justice,  is  to  deny 
the  evidence  of  history  itself. 

Moments  of  anxiety  test  the  moral  fiber  of  indi- 
viduals and  nations.  The  patriotism  that  leads  men 
to  join  forlorn  hopes  is  heroic;  but  religion  does 
more  than  nerve  Childe  Rolands  to  attack  the  giants 
of  dark  towers.  It  gives  to  nations  struggling 
for  the  rights  of  humanity  courage  in  moments  of 
despondency,  self-control  in  the  agony  of  evil  tid- 
ings, hope  in  the  time  of  defeat.  We,  like  the  He- 
brew prophet,  can  recall  the  doings  of  God  in  our 
past.  True,  such  religion  may  be  without  its  con- 
scious theology,  spontaneous  rather  than  institu- 
tional, instinctive  rather  than  meditative.  But  it  is 
religion  none  the  less.  And  it  is  this  religion  we  can 
bring  to  our  own  hearts  in  these  days.  When  one 
takes  a  long  view  of  the  past  and  sees  how  humanity 
in  its  best  moments  has  organized  for  itself  institu- 
tions that  insure  the  rights  of  the  weak,  and  enforce 
the  duties  of  the  strong;  when  one  sees  a  whole  world 
with  the  exception  of  its  enemies  sweeping  on  to- 


SERVICE  OF  RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM        139 

'  wards  ever  more  democratic  ideals ;  it  is  impossible 
to  doubt  that  morality  moves  forward ;  that  a  divine 
purpose  runs  through  the  ages ;  and  that  this  purpose 
will  inevitably  bring  about  a  better  world  order. 
With  this  conviction,  born  not  only  of  a  sense  of 
the  justice  of  our  cause,  but  of  a  sense  of  the  pres- 
ence in  the  historical  process  of  a  God  who  is  more 
than  a  metaphysical  formula,  we  face  the  sacrifices 
which  the  crisis  of  to-day  demands.  We  who  believe 
in  evolution  cannot  doubt  that  the  nations  who  stand 
for  these  goals  toward  which  human  history  points 
are  on  God's  side.  In  this  confidence  we  find 
strength  to  make  the  sacrifices  that  the  protection  of 
the  choicest  blessings  of  humanity  demands.  We 
dare  to  protect  our  nation  as  an  agent  of  a  cosmic 
God.  As  we  summon  from  the  past  the  noble  army 
of  those  who  have  kept  their  faith  in  a  God  of  jus- 
tice and  of  goodness,  even  though  they  themselves 
perished  because  of  their  faith,  we  join  in  the  Mar- 
sellaise  of  Christian  experience, — "  Seeing  that  we 
are  compassed  about  by  so  great  a  crowd  of  the 
veterans  of  the  faith,  we  lay  aside  every  weight 
and  the  sin  that  so  easily  besets  us,  and  run  with 
patience  the  race  that  is  set  before  us,  looking  unto 
Jesus,  the  captain  and  perfector  of  our  faith."  And 
so  singing  we  carry  on ! 


I4O  PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 

III 

Religion  can  serve  patriotism  by  freeing  it  from 
vindictiveness  and  personal  hatreds. 

Nationalism  in  its  worst  aspects  has  been  hardly 
more  than  arrogance  and  contempt.  To  despise 
one's  neighbors,  belittle  their  achievements  in  sci- 
ence and  art,  accuse  them  of  moral  turpitude,  de- 
generacy and  hypocrisy,  has  been  the  consistent 
policy  of  Germany.  "  We  are  morally  and  intel- 
lectually superior  to  other  nations,"  wrote  Professor 
Lasson  in  1914,  "we  are  without  equals."  "  It  is 
not  true,"  declares  Wolfgang  Eisenhart,  "that  all 
nations  have  the  same  right  of  existence.  There  are 
decadent  nations,  falling  into  moral  decay;  these  in 
the  tribunal  of  history  have  forfeited  the  right  to 
their  own  national  existence  and  must  make  room 
for  the  higher  morality  of  another  nation  destined 
to  dominion." 

A  nation  possessed  of  such  views  of  other  nations 
not  only  systematically  educates  its  citizens  to  hate 
successively  the  various  countries  with  which  it  is 
at  war,  but  it  distributes  this  collective  passion  until 
individual  Germans  hate  individual  Englishmen  and 
Americans.  The  treatment  accorded  conquered 
lands  and  prisoners  of  war  brings  German  vindic- 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION    TO    PATRIOTISM 

tiveness  into  the  clearest  light.  Hatred  has  become 
an  indispensable  part  of  German  patriotism. 

Such  a  debasement  of  personal  morality  is  diffi- 
cult to  avoid.  Few  of  us  can  read  the  verified  ac- 
counts of  German  atrocities  in  every  conquered  ter- 
ritory without  a  desire  to  punish  both  nation  and 
citizens  capable  of  such  deeds.  Not  to  feel  hot  in- 
dignation as  we  think  of  the  sorrows  of  Belgians  and 
Frenchmen,  Serbians  and  Poles,  Armenians  and 
Bohemians,  is  unworthy  of  men  who  love  their 
fellows. 

But  religion,  if  only  it  be  that  of  Jesus,  can  keep 
this  indignation  from  descending  into  hatred  of 
individuals  or  even  of  nations.  The  task  that  Ger- 
many has  set  the  world  is  much  greater  than  that  of 
self -protection.  It  includes  also  national  and  indi- 
vidual self-control.  No  Christian  can  consistently 
desire  to  injure  his  enemies  simply  that  they  shall 
suffer.  To  conquer  a  nation  is  not  necessarily  to 
hate  its  citizens. 

It  must  be  admitted  such  moral  demands  are  all 
but  beyond  human  powers.  But  such  an  admission 
is  only  an  argument  for  a  more  rigorous  loyalty  to 
the  morals  of  Jesus  and  for  a  larger  influence  of  his 
religion.  We  need  divine  help  if  we  are  to  keep  our 
souls  clear  from  individual  hate  when  as  citizens  we 


142  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

must  hold  in  a  loathing  which  cannot  stop  short  of 
destruction  any  political  power  brazenly  disloyal  to 
human  welfare  and  the  God  of  all  mankind.  But 
individual  hatred  is  not  national  indignation.  True 
as  it  is  that  a  common  hatred  is  one  of  the  great 
sources  of  community  action,  it  is  just  as  true  that 
national  indignation,  ferocity  and  relentlessness  at 
the  violation  of  fundamental  moral  principles  both 
in  individual  and  in  national  relations,  is  a  call  to 
religion.  He  who  worships  the  God  of  love  will 
never  be  content  with  a  world  where  divine  love  is 
limited  to  the  rescue  of  souls  from  hell  or  even  from 
vulgar  sins.  He  should  realize  that  a  national  ideal 
is  included  in  that  same  holy  will.  Without  such  a 
conviction,  our  efforts  after  international  morality 
are  as  likely  to  be  immoral  as  are  the  relations  of 
individuals  when  moral  principles  are  forgotten,  and 
hatred  becomes  a  motive  to  action. 

Can  we  then  love  our  enemies  ?  Yes,  we  can  love 
them,  but  we  cannot  like  them.  Nor  need  we. 
Christian  love  does  not  condone  evil.  Jesus  insists 
on  no  such  miracle.  To  love  people  is  to  treat  them 
as  we  should  like  to  be  treated,  and  to  wish  them 
well.  If  their  enmity  to  us  is  due  to  our  own  wrong- 
doing, we  must  remove  the  cause,  cost  what  it  may. 
If  it  is  due  to  their  wrongdoing,  we  must  try  to  get 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION   TO    PATRIOTISM         143 

them  to  abandon  their  practices.  If  they  then  re- 
fuse to  be  reconciled,  they  are  to  be  ostracized. 

That  is  the  plain  teaching  of  Jesus. 

But  suppose  —  as  is  the  case  —  that  ostracized 
evil  doers  seek  to  do  men  harm.  Can  we  love  our 
enemies  while  they  make  war  upon  us?  Not  if 
love  means  affection  for  them  or  indifference  to 
their  wrongdoing.  Love  for  enemies  does  not  mean 
that  we  should  suffer  them  to  do  others  harm ;  that 
we  should  approve  their  brutality,  condone  their 
atrocities,  or  submit  to  their  oppression.  We  have 
a  nation  to  preserve,  a  civilization,  political  ideals, 
and  liberties  to  safeguard. 

We  shall  love  the  Germans  in  the  sense  that  we 
shall  be  reconciled  with  them  as  soon  as  they  con- 
vince us  that  we  have  done  .them  wrong  or  they  are 
converted  to  a  regard  for  human  rights  and  inter- 
national justice.  If  they  refuse  such  reconciliation, 
persist  in  robbing  other  nations,  justify  rape,  mas- 
sacres, deportations,  starvation,  and  terrorization  in 
the  name  of  patriotism,  love  for  them  will  not  lead 
us  to  neglect  love  for  their  victims.  If  they  threaten 
the  world  with  the  sword,  we  shall  protect  the  world 
with  the  sword. 

Love  for  our  enemies  is  not  moral  if  it  deadens 
our  indignation  against  the  crimes  they  perpetrate. 


144  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Love  for  our  enemies  cannot  make  us  indifferent 
to  our  obligation  to  protect  those  who  are  not  our 
enemies.  That  too  is  love,  and  of  the  noblest  sort. 

Love  for  our  enemies  will  not  keep  us  from  killing 
them  if  they  compel  us  to  choose  that  as  the  only 
way  in  which  to  express  our  love  for  their  victims. 
We  did  not  choose  the  method.  We  tried  to  bring 
Germany  to  a  regard  for  others  and  its  own  best 
inheritance.  We  turned  one  cheek  and  then  an- 
other. We  were  forced  into  war  when  we  sought 
peace,  into  violence  when  we  preferred  reconcilia- 
tion, to  draw  the  sword  when  we  pleaded  for  the 
olive  branch. 

Love  has  stern  duties  just  because  it  is  love.  Not 
to  fulfill  these  duties  is  injustice  to  the  victims  of 
organized  injustice. 

We  need  not  hate  Germany  in  the  sense  that  we 
wish  it  ill.  We  have  no  desire  to  crush  the  nation 
because  it  is  un-Christian.  We  shall  not  soil  our 
souls  by  vengeance.  German  women  shall  not  suffer 
at  our  hands  because  Belgian  women  have  suffered 
unmentionable  injury  from  German  soldiers.  Ger- 
man civilians  shall  not  be  shot  because  Belgian  and 
French  civilians  have  been  shot  in  batches.  German 
workmen  and  farmers  will  not  be  made  slaves  of 
martial  law  because  the  workmen  and  farmers  of 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         145 

•Belgium,  France,  Poland,  and  the  Ukraine  have 
been  deported  and  maltreated.  Germans  need  not 
fear  we  shall  violate  treaties  because  they  have  made 
a  mockery  of  treaties. 

Indignation  and  loathing  are  not  hatred.  Self- 
protection  is  not  vindictiveness.  National  action  for 
the  sake  of  world-peace  is  not  vengeance. 

Christians  do  not  hate  because  they  fight.  We 
seek  not  vengeance  but  international  justice.  When 
peace  comes  we  shall  ask  no  punitive  suffering.  We 
shall  help  Germans  when  Germans  will  let  us  help 
them.  Our  sense  of  justice  will  extend  to  them  as 
to  all  the  world. 

But  such  love  will  not  excuse  their  brutalities  or 
make  us  indifferent  to  the  danger  of  the  repetition  of 
German  crimes. 

We  shall  love  our  enemies,  but  we  shall  not  dis- 
arm until  they  are  harmless.  If  they  repent  and 
bring  forth  fruits  meet  for  repentance,  we  shall  wel- 
come their  return  to  civilization. 

Until  that  day  we  shall  fight  them.  For  love  that 
seeks  to  do  men  good  is  cowardice  when  it  refuses 
to  prevent  them  from  doing  wrong. 


146  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

IV 

Religion  can  serve  patriotism  by  furnishing  the 
moral  enthusiasm  for  organizing  an  international 
order  that  shall  make  nations  into  moral  units. 

Morality  is  not  born  of  abstract  theories,  but  of 
concrete  situations.  Individual  morality  has  been 
made  possible  because  there  has  been  an  intimate 
relationship  of  individuals  in  a  social  order  sufficient 
to  build  up  social  situations  in  which  human  conduct 
can  be  standardized,  under  the  control  of  the  whole 
of  which  they  are  a  part.  The  development  of 
customs  and  institutions  has  established  sanctions 
and  inhibitions  which  have  gradually  replaced  the 
reliance  upon  brute  force  with  which  they  may  have 
been  originally  enforced.  The  institution  of  the 
family  has  developed  a  morality  of  the  relation  of 
the  sexes,  in  so  far  as  that  relationship  is  clearly  seen 
to  be  dependent  upon  the  maintenance  of  the  rights 
of  the  home.  Even  in  civilizations  where  this  patria 
potestas  has  disappeared,  the  family  and  particularly 
the  welfare  of  the  child  have  set  certain  standards 
of  conduct  to  which  men  and  women  must  conform 
if  they  are  not  to  suffer  social  penalties.  Honesty 
is  very  largely  developed  in  the  mutual  relations  of 
economic  life.  Civilizations  which  have  been  mili- 


SERVICE  OF  RELIGION   TO  PATRIOTISM        147 

tary  have  emphasized  honor  rather  than  honesty, 
but  when  transformed  by  commercial  and  industrial 
forces  they  have  magnified  individual  honesty. 

Nations,  however,  as  John  Dewey  has  pointed  out, 
have  never  been  subordinated  to  group  control,  other 
than  that  of  military  power.  The  solidarity  of  na- 
tional units  in  an  international  society  has  never  been 
developed.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  the  morality  of 
national  units  will  develop  until  nations  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  will  of  a  well  established  world- 
society.  The  rise  of  international  law  has  been  a 
movement  in  this  direction,  and,  even  in  its  very 
inchoate  situation,  is  the  finest  fruit  of  moral  prog- 
ress. But  its  development  has  been  consistently 
hindered  by  Germany.  "  For  the  state,"  said  von 
Treitschke,  the  priest  and  prophet  of  the  Hohenzol- 
'  lern  house,  "  self-assertion  is  the  greatest  of  the 
commandments;  for  it,  this  is  absolutely  moral. 
And  for  this  reason  it  must  be  declared  that  of  all 
political  sins  the  most  abominable  and  the  most  con- 
temptible is  weakness;  this  is,  in  politics,  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost.'*  From  such  a  point  of 
view  patriotism  is  without  morality.  Might  is  not 
only  right;  it  obviates  the  necessity  of  discussing 
right.  The  present  war  has  made  clear  that  there 
is  no  social  situation  sufficiently  unified  to  place 


148  PATRIOTISM   AND  RELIGION 

effective  inhibition  against  action  in  accord  with 
this  anti-morality.  No  less  a  person  than  Von 
Kohler,  commonly  regarded  as  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  authorities  in  the  field  of  international  law, 
has  distinctly  denied  that  such  law  exists.  He 
frankly  expresses  an  anti-social  view  of  national 
relations  thoroughly  consistent  with  the  egoistic 
genius  of  the  German  state.  International  law,  he 
insists,  cannot  exist  until  there  arises  some  nation 
with  conscience  high  enough  and  power  great  enough 
to  enforce  its  decisions  upon  the  actions  of  other 
nations.  Such  a  nation  he  disdainfully  refuses  to 
see  in  Russia  or  France,  Great  Britain  or  America. 
Germany  alone,  he  holds,  is  the  nation  with  con- 
science high  enough  and  power  great  enough  to  lay 
its  will  on  other  nations  and  so  build  up  a  genuine 
international  law ! 

It  requires  no  argument  to  see  that  such  a  position 
is  only  a  camouflaged  plea  for  conquest.  It  recog- 
nizes no  community  of  practice  among  nations,  no 
approach  to  an  international  consensus.  It  is  simply 
another  way  of  saying  that  there  must  be  established 
a  pax  teutonica  in  which  all  nations  must  yield  to  the 
will  of  a  supreme  Germany.  Such  a  view  is  no  more 
moral  than  that  of  any  tyranny.  Its  religious  basis, 
if  indeed  it  claims  any,  is  that  of  faith  in  an  ethnic 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM        149 

v  god,  and  its  hope  for  the  future  rests  entirely  upon 
the  inability  of  other  nations  to  cooperate  effectively 
in  a  world  order.  It  is  no  wonder  that  German 
patriotism  is  not  international,  and  no  wonder  that 
German  religion  is  boastfully  tribal. 

Over  against  such  a  view  is  to  be  set  the  expecta- 
tion thrust  upon  us  by  a  study  of  actual  human  his- 
tory. The  rise  of  democracies  and  the  spread  of 
representative  and  responsible  government  over 
nearly  all  the  world  not  ruled  by  Germany  are  evi- 
dences that  we  already  possess  an  incipient  social 
morality  in  which  the  units  shall  be  nations,  and  in 
which  the  controlling  social  unity  is  born  of  na- 
tional activity.  The  question  as  to  how  far  the 
ideals  of  individual  morality  can  be  carried  into  the 
unborn  group  morality  is  one  which  the  future  alone 
can  decide.  But  although  we  cannot  see  just  what 
this  outcome  will  be,  we  can  at  least  see  the  task. 
The  League  of  Nations  of  which  the  democratic 
states  are  speaking  is  certainly  the  most  workable 
proposal  which  has  yet  been  made  in  this  connection. 
That  it  must  at  the  start  rest  upon  force  is  no  argu- 
ment against  it.  The  choice  is  simply  as  to  whether 
this  force  shall  be  used  by  nations  irresponsible  to 
their  world,  or  whether,  like  the  police  power  of  the 
modern  state,  it  shall  be  used  by  the  world  for  the 


I5O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

purpose  of  establishing  the  sanctions  and  inhibitions 
of  an  international  morality.  The  precise  steps 
which  can  be  taken  for  the  bringing  to  pass  of  such 
an  ideal  await  the  decision  of  the  future.  But  one 
thing  is  beyond  fair  question :  such  a  League  of  Na- 
tions will  require  something  more  than  means  to 
delay  war  by  economic  boycott  and  military  hin- 
drance. Just  as  religion  has  served  as  the  great 
foundation  of  individual  morality,  so  must  religion 
serve  as  the  basis  of  the  new  international  morality. 
The  foundations  for  an  international  morality,  I 
repeat,  are  already  laid.  It  is  no  accident  that  na- 
tions which  have  shaped  their  recent  development 
upon  the  principles  of  democracy  should  to-day  be 
struggling  to  restrain  the  aggression  of  the  anti- 
democratic government  of  Germany.  The  begin- 
nings of  a  League  of  Nations  committed  to  the 
maintenance  of  peace  already  exist.  France,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  United  States  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury have  ordered  their  relations  according  to  an 
ever  increasing  recognition  of  moral  law.  As  they 
have  grown  democratic  they  have  recognized  each 
other's  rights.  From  their  intercourse  has  sprung 
a  group  of  precedents  which  have  acquired  with  them 
all  but  final  authority.  In  the  present  war,  during 
our  neutrality,  Great  Britain  appealed  against  us  to 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION   TO    PATRIOTISM 

decisions  establishing  our  claims  against  English- 
men. But  Germany  has  consistently  refused  such 
recognition.  "  We  are  glad,"  said  Wilhelm  Herr- 
man  to  a  colleague  of  mine  years  ago,  "  to  have  re- 
publican principles  grow  among  other  nations,  for 
they  will  grow  less  efficient  in  war."  As  Americans 
we  have  no  reason  to  lament  that  our  nation  has 
attempted  to  live  like  a  gentleman  among  other  na- 
tions. Our  only  regret  is  that  our  optimism  blinded 
us  from  seeing  that  German  patriotism  was  social- 
ized highway  robbery.  The  Monroe  Doctrine  may 
have  sprung  from  motives  of  self -protection,  but 
thanks  to  the  cooperation  of  other  great  democracies, 
it  has  included  also  the  protection  of  weaker  neigh- 
bors. That  is  a  precedent  for  the  internationalism 
of  the  future.  It  is  a  new  group-morality  in  which 
nations  are  the  individual  actors.  It  will  grow 
dominant  as  nations  respect  the  ideals  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  emphasis  here  is  upon  actual  religion  rather 
than  upon  a  philosophy  of  religion  or  upon  a  the- 
ology. The  ideals  of  Christianity  must  needs  be 
operative,  but  the  propaganda  of  Christianity  as  an 
organized  religion  will  be  secondary  to  these  ideals. 
The  one  great  demand  will  be  for  a  God  equal  to  the 
task  which  such  an  international  morality  proposes. 


152  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

Such  a  God  cannot  be  the  property  of  any  one  nation 
or  of  any  one  civilization.  The  God  of  the  world 
must  be  greater  than  the  gods  of  the  nations.  He 
must  be  the  cosmic  God,  whose  will  in  human  history 
is  consistent  with  its  own  operation  in  other  aspects 
of  our  cosmic  life. 

The  moral  content  given  to  the  idea  of  such  a  God 
cannot  be  drawn  from  any  highly  nationalized  re- 
ligion. A  nationalized  idea  of  God  will  lead  to  in- 
ternational polytheism.  It  is  a  tribute  to  the  higher 
religious  thinking  of  the  democratic  nations  that  in 
this  war  we  hear  no  appeal  to  the  old  English  God, 
the  old  French  God,  the  old  Italian  God,  or  the 
old  American  God.  Such  appeals  are  limited  wholly 
to  a  people  who,  finding  no  moral  leadership  in  a 
governing  class  besotted  with  a  belief  in  materialistic 
evolution,  seek  to  reenforce  the  passion  of  an  atavis- 
tic patriotism  by  calls  upon  Odin,  old  Fritz,  and  the 
German  God.  Puritans  carried  their  guns  to  church 
to  protect  them  from  Indians ;  Germans  draw  "  the 
shining  sword  "  to  force  "  kultur "  upon  what  to 
them  is  a  barbarian  world. 

It  is,  of  course,  clear  enough  that  a  patriotism 
which  is  belligerently  national  can  have  little  use  for 
a  God  of  all  the  nations.  The  God  of  Jesus  can 


SERVICE  OF  RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM         153 

make  no  appeal  to  the  German,  unless  it  be  to  that 
sentimental  piety  of  Germany  that  refuses  to  look 
upon  problems  of  religion  as  other  than  that  of  the 
individual  life  and  the  preparation  for  the  bliss  of 
heaven.  International  morality  must  rest  upon  the 
will  of  a  God  who  is  the  property  of  no  nation,  but 
who  is  the  father  of  all  men.  How  else  can  we  gain 
a  true  sense  of  national  sin?  How  else  can  we  see 
that  war  is  a  product  of  some  nation's  immoral  lust 
for  wealth  and  power?  Without  a  God  of  the 
world,  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  a  religion  prostituted 
to  nationalism.  We  dare  then  not  pray  for  justice, 
for  justice  must  mean  that  unjust  national  policies 
are  doomed.  A  God  carried  like  the  Ark  into  battle 
by  only  one  army  is  chained  to  a  nation's  cannon  and 
is  not  worth  praying  to.  We  need  a  God  who  can 
further  righteousness,  not  merely  give  victory  to  His 
proprietors. 

When  men  are  ready  to  submit  their  differences  to 
the  court  of  super-national  morality,  religion  and 
patriotism  are  sobered  and  hallowed.  To  such  men 
war  is  not  something  to  be  planned  but  to  be  avoided. 
They  will  not  want  their  country  to  win  regardless 
of  justice.  And  if  war,  through  no  fault  of  theirs, 
comes,  they  will  not  pray  for  the  victory  of  their 


154  PATRIOTISM    AND   RELIGION 

nation  but  for  the  victory  of  the  principles  of  justice 
their  nation  has  embodied  in  its  institutions  and  its 
policies. 

A  patriotism  that  is  thus  inspired  by  the  God  of 
the  universe,  revealed  as  love  as  well  as  law,  is  a 
patriotism  that  the  world  has  not  fully  reached. 
But  it  is  a  patriotism  that  is  in  the  making.  We  can 
already  see  it  as  one  studies  the  voluminous  religious 
literature  put  out  by  Englishmen  since  the  outbreak 
of  the  war.  It  is  this  plea  for  international  morality 
on  the  basis  of  Christian  ideals  that  the  Germans 
delight  to  call  hypocrisy !  By  the  same  token  the  re- 
fusal of  an  honest  man  not  to  steal  is  hypocrisy  to  a 
highwayman ! 

Nothing  better  expresses  the  difference  in  the  two 
types  of  patriotism  than  the  refusal  of  Germany  to 
find  in  Christianity  a  basis  for  international  policy. 
Germans  have  appealed  to  Caesar.  To  a  greater 
than  Caesar  they  must  go. 

Swept  into  a  defensive  war  we  sought  to  avoid 
by  appeals  to  a  moral  sense  we  persistently  believed 
the  German  government  possessed,  we  need  to  be- 
lieve in  a  God  as  noble  as  the  ideals  for  which  we 
fight.  For  us  to  carry  on  this  war  in  the  interest  of 
the  rights  of  other  nations  and  at  the  same  time  at- 
tempt to  nerve  ourselves  by  prayer  to  military  con- 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION    TO    PATRIOTISM         155 

quest  would  be  indeed  immoral.  A  world  that  is 
to  be  made  safe  for  democracy  must  be  a  world  that 
is  consciously  seeking  help  of  a  God  who  is  superior 
to  national  policies. 

It  is  here  that  the  church  has  one  of.  its  greatest 
opportunities  and  tasks.  It  must  champion  the 
value  and  function  of  ideals  in  national  life.  Ger- 
man writers  frankly  call  such  a  belief  "  sentimen- 
tality." But  we  know  better.  Moral  and  religious 
ideals  are  more  than  soft-heartedness.  We  shall 
shrink  from  the  desperate  task  of  protecting  the  be- 
ginnings of  a  better  world  order  if  our  idealism  is 
weakened  by  a  conception  of  God  and  of  religion 
which  is  indifferent  to  the  moral  tasks  of  a  social 
group  acting  as  a  unit.  To  a  genuinely  Christian 
soul  the  thought  of  taking  the  life  of  another  person 
is  abhorrent.  But  a  patriotism  which  refuses  to 
fight  to  establish  international  peace  and  to  protect 
liberty  because  of  its  dislike  of  violence  is  aestheti- 
cism.  We  must  learn  that  the  God  of  love  has  no 
use  for  the  individual  who  treats  his  ideals  as  a 
luxury  and  his  social  duty  as  inferior  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  such  ideals.  Internationalism  must  be  based 
on  a  morality,  not  generically  different  from  that  of 
the  individual  life,  but  in  which  these  ideals  are  con- 
ceived as  belonging  to  a  nation  as  a  whole.  And 


156  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

this  morality  must  be  given  drive  and  passion  by 
faith  in  a  God  who  is  a  God  of  international  rela- 
tions. 


Finally,  religion  must  teach  patriotism  to  see  that 
it  is  better  to  give  justice  than  to  fight  for  rights. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  great  causes  of  war 
are  desire  for  conquest  and  economic  advantage. 
If  once  any  sort  of  international  morality  be  de- 
veloped, conquest  and  economic  growth  at  the  ex- 
pense of  other  nations  must  cease.  Such  an  ideal 
for  national  action  involves  the  national  sacrifice 
which  will  be  the  supreme  test  of  a  nation's  soul.  A 
small  nation  may  be  content  to  remain  a  small  na- 
tion, provided  only  that  it  is  permitted  to  manage 
its  own  affairs ;  but  a  strong  nation  will  find  it  diffi- 
cult not  to  use  its  strength  for  its  own  advantage. 
International  competition,  the  ambition  of  rulers  and 
commercial  classes  will  combine  to  decry  any  appeal 
to  generosity  as  impracticable.  But  until  a  nation 
develops  an  ability  to  withhold  its  hand  from  uni- 
versal success,  war  will  be  inevitable.  Nations  will 
arm  to  protect  themselves  against  nations  in  pro- 
portion as  they  suspect  an  unwillingness  to  recognize 
their  own  right  to  political  and  economic  self -deter- 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION    TO    PATRIOTISM         157 

mination.  So  long  as  we  dare  not  trust  the  morals 
of  our  neighbors'  ambitions  we  shall  arm  ourselves 
against  them.  No  morality  can  be  really  established 
until  the  principles  of  democratizing  privilege  among 
nations  complement  the  democratizing  of  privilege 
between  individuals.  But  any  such  advance  in  the 
relation  of  nations  means  that  the  economic  policies 
of  nations  must  themselves  be  controlled  by  princi- 
ples of  justice.  The  issue  is  not  one  of  abstract 
ethical  theory,  but  one  of  business  policies. 

How  far  shall  a  nation  proceed  in  undermining 
another  nation's  foreign  trade  ?  How  far  shall  na- 
tions establish  tariffs  intended  to  cripple  the  com- 
merce of  other  nations?  What  shall  be  a  nation's 
policy  in  the  shipment  of  its  products  to  other  na- 
tions ? 

Such  questions  as  these  touch  the  very  soul  of  a 
nation's  life.  It  is  easier  to  fight  for  an  abstract 
principle  than  to  neglect  an  opportunity  to  grow 
rich.  The  task  of  the  religious  teacher  will  be 
vastly  more  complicated  as  the  sense  of  international 
morality  develops,  for  he  will  be  no  longer  dealing 
with  the  simple  if  perplexing  problems  of  individual 
conduct,  but  with  the  highly  complicated  question  of 
the  priority  of  moral  obligations  on  the  part  of  a 
nation.  Shall  a  nation  deliberately  adopt  an  inter- 


158  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

national  policy  which  will  prevent  its  citizens  grow- 
ing as  rich  as  the  citizens  of  more  favored  nations? 
War  and  peace  as  well  as  morals  may  hang  on  the 
answer.  Nor  can  the  right  answer  be  given  until  a 
people's  estimate  of  its  place  in  world  politics  is 
intelligently  moral. 

Democracy  in  its  triumph  is  exposed  to  tempta- 
tions from  which  democracy  struggling  for  existence 
is  free.  The  possession  of  power  always  brings 
new  moral  problems.  A  nation  conscious  of  its 
sincere  desire  to  benefit  other  nations,  but  forced  to 
maintain  that  duty  by  war,  must  always  guard  itself 
against  the  temptation  to  make  those  whom  it  de- 
feats the  victims  of  its  own  powers.  A  patriotism 
that  is  without  the  capacity  to  sacrifice  is  an  un- 
Christian  patriotism.  Nor  does  patriotism  need  re- 
ligion only  in  these  national  sacrifices.  No  Chris- 
tian heart  has  escaped  the  inner  struggle  born  of  the 
knowledge  that  a  war  for  the  maintenance  of  human 
rights  means  sorrow  and  suffering  and  death  for 
those  it  loves.  How  many  of  us  during  the  last  few 
months  have  found  ourselves  crying  out  in  agony 
against  the  horror  of  a  situation  which  robs  nations 
of  millions  of  their  finest  lives,  and  brings  sorrow  to 
millions  of  innocent  hearts !  The  hideousness  of  the 
moment  is  too  great  for  words.  To  describe  it  is 


SERVICE   OF   RELIGION    TO    PATRIOTISM         1 59 

impossible.  Yet  we,  like  other  nations,  have  reached 
this  Calvary.  But  our  sacrifices  are  not  selfishness. 
We  pray  to  our  God  for  victory  and  for  the  protec- 
tion of  those  who  are  dear  to  us,  not  because  we 
wish  to  gain  more  territory  or  indemnities.  It  is  im- 
possible for  me  to  understand  how  a  genuinely  Chris- 
tian soul  can  pray  for  the  success  of  its  nation's 
army  when  it  knows  that  success  means  the  horrors 
of  Belgium,  and  Poland,  and  Serbia,  and  Armenia. 
How  can  any  person,  be  he  never  so  patriotic,  justify 
a  prayer  that  God  should  be  on  the  side  of  those  who 
undertake  to  crush  weaker  people,  loot  their  re- 
sources, and  deport  men  and  women  into  slavery 
tempered  only  by  disease  and  death?  That  such 
a  patriotism  leads  to  sacrifice  cannot  be  denied,  but 
it  is  a  sacrifice  which  the  savage  can  duplicate,  ac- 
companied by  a  brutality  of  which  a  savage  would  be 
ashamed. 

Those  of  us  who  this  day  share  a  world-struggle  in 
which  our  sons  are  offering  their  lives  without 
thought  of  national  aggrandizement,  solely  for  the 
protection  of  human  rights,  can  have  no  such  qualms 
of  conscience  as  we  look  to  God  for  comfort  and 
courage  in  our  moments  of  sacrifice.  For  such  a 
patriotism  is  sacrificial  in  the  truly  Christian  sense. 
The  brutality  of  the  battle  field  has  been  thrust  upon 


I6O  PATRIOTISM   AND   RELIGION 

us.  The  need  that  our  victory  should  bring  sorrow 
to  other  lives  is  not  of  our  making.  We  train  our 
armies  to  do  their  terrible  duties,  not  that  we  may 
glory  in  their  victory,  but  rather  because  we  have 
been  forced  to  see  that  this  is  the  only  method  by 
which  the  will  of  God  can  be  done.  Sad  and  tragic 
as  is  the  moment,  we  dare  lift  our  hearts  unafraid  to 
the  God  of  justice.  Our  sacrifice  and  the  sacrifice 
of  those  who  are  dearer  to  us  than  life  itself,  are  a 
part  of  that  strange  process  in  which  evil  must  be 
repressed  in  vicarious  suffering  in  order  that  the 
good  already  accomplished  may  be  preserved  and 
extended. 

In  such  moments  we  can  look  to  the  God  of  bat- 
tles no  more  than  we  can  look  to  Moloch.  We 
willingly  bear  our  share  of  suffering,  looking  for 
help  to  Him  who  uplifts  those  who  consecrate  them- 
selves to  the  cause  of  establishing  justice.  Our  na- 
tional life  becomes  ennobled  as  we  pray  for  victory. 
Our  national  soul  becomes  chastened  as  we  find  our- 
selves suffering  for  the  cause  of  others.  We  find 
ourselves  looking  to  the  Christ  of  Calvary  no  longer 
as  one  who  in  some  mysterious  fashion  offers  sacri- 
fice to  divine  honor,  but  as  one  who  has  revealed  the 
divine  will  for  the  progress  of  fraternity.  To  the 
God  of  Jesus  we  pray,  not  to  the  God  of  the  Judges ; 


SERVICE  OF   RELIGION   TO   PATRIOTISM        l6l 

to  the  God  who  carries  us  forward  through  our 
suffering  to  a  larger  realization  of  national  mission 
and  to  a  nobler  vision  of  international  morality. 

If  we  speak  less  boastfully  of  such  a  God  than  does 
the  German  emperor  of  "  the  old  German  God,"  it 
is  because  our  hearts  are  hushed  in  the  solemnity  of 
our  new  faith.  |Our  patriotism  is  ennobled  not 
alone  by  our  suffering,  but  by  the  hope  that  we  are 
carrying  on  the  divine  will  which  ultimately  will  be 
done  upon  earth.  Our  patriotism  looks  to  no  tribal 
God,  nor  even  a  Weltgeist  enmeshed  ultimately  in  a 
national  Kultur.  Rather  while  our  hearts  are  filled 
with  groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered  do  we  face  the 
horrors  wrought  by  a  patriotism  that  has  discarded 
the  ideals  of  the  one  and  only  God,  and  seek  to  bear 
bravely  the  anxiety  and  the  sorrow  of  the  day.  For 
we  are  convinced  that  out  from  this  moment  of 
struggle  there  shall  come  a  patriotism  that  dares 
pray  and  fight  for  a  nation  re-dedicated  to  human 
welfare,  both  within  and  without  its  boundaries. 


THE  END 


FEINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF  AMIBIOA 


History  of  New  Testament 
Times  in  Palestine 


BY  SHAILER  MATHEWS 

,  $1.00 


"'  The  period  covered  extends  from  the  uprising  of  the 
Maccabees  in  165  B.  c.  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in 
70  A.  D.  Two  chapters  deal  with  the  condition  of  the 
Jews  under  the  Seleucidae  and  the  loss  of  religious  lib- 
erty during  the  reign  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 

"  Four  chapters  are  given  to  the  marvelous  leadership 
of  the  Maccabee  family.  The  Herods  are  portrayed  with 
such  fulness  that  much  light  is  thrown  on  the  Gospel  rec- 
ords. A  chapter  on  the  social  life  of  Palestine  makes  a 
fine  commentary  on  many  acts  and  teachings  of  Jesus. 
A  final  chapter  deals  with  the  forces  that  overthrew 
Jerusalem. 

"  Ten  editions  in  ten  years  indicate  that  this  revised 
text  will  continue  to  serve  Bible  students  as  a  valuable 
and  sympathetic  Bible  Students'  help."  —  Continent. 

"  Everybody  should  be  informed  in  regard  to  the  his- 
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view. 

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**  This  book  will  make  the  New  Testament  mean  much 
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Church. 


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The  Church  and  the  Changing  Order 

Cloth,  I2mo,  $1.50 

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and  the  problems  of  modern  social  and  industrial  life  will 
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The  Gospel  and  the  Modem  Man 

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The  Social  Teaching  of  Jesus 

AN  ESSAY   IN   CHRISTIAN   SOCIOLOGY 

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*'  We  recommend  Professor  Mathew's  book  to  all  in- 
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'*  Such  a  study  is  sure  to  be  useful,  and  if  the  reader 
sometimes  feels  that  the  Jesus  here  presented  has  the 
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in  the  four  Gospels." —  The  Outlook. 

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RECENT  RELIGIOUS  HAND  BOOKS 

Each  60  Cent* 

NEW  HORIZON  OF  STATE  AND  CHURCH. 

BY  W.  H.  P.  FAUNCE 

"Broad,   profound,   scholarship,   close   relationship   with   pro- 
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THE  CHRISTIAN  MAN,  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE 
WAR. 

BY  ROBERT  E.  SPEER 

The  essentials  of  a  problem  which  has  exercised  Christian  men 
since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
THE  ASSURANCE  OF  IMMORTALITY. 

BY  HARRY  EMERSON  FOSDICK 

"  Will  be  welcomed  by  those  who  need  to  be  shown  how  much 
it  means  to  this  world  to  believe  that  this  life  is  but  part  of  a 
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THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  MAN. 

BY  DONALD  HANKEY 

"Filled  with  the  wise  sincerity  of  a  religious  conviction  that 
cares  little  for  creed  and  miracle." — Boston  Transcript. 
ARE  YOU  HUMAN? 

BY  WILLIAM  DEWITT  HYDE 

"  Every   man   ought   to   get   and   digest   this   book." —  Pacific 
Churchman. 
THE  BEST  MAN  I  KNOW. 

BY  WILLIAM  DEWITT  HYDE 

"  Presented  with  a  vigor  that  is  like  the  sting  of  salt  winds, 
bracing  and  wholesome." — Christian  Register. 
IT'S  ALL  IN  THE  DAY'S  WORK. 

BY  HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 

"  Good  bracing  council  ...  a  book  for  all  who  wish  to  acquit 
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THE  WAY  OF  LIFE. 

BY  HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 

A  discussion  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  with  chapters  on 
Christ  and  the  war.     In  preparation. 
THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY  CRUSADE. 

BY  LYMAN  ABBOTT 

Viewing  the  present  war  as  the  greatest  demonstration  in  all 
history  of  the  extent  and  power  of  Christianity.    In  preparation. 

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Psychology  and  Preaching 

BY  CHARLES  S.  GARDNER 

Clotk.  JAM.    Price  frjoo 

"  Psychology  and  Preaching  "  is  a  thorough  study  of 
the  more  important  mental  processes  involved  in  preach- 
ing, from  the  standpoint  of  functional  psychology. 

After  a  discussion  of  toe  general  mental  processes  -— 
intellectual,  emotional  and  voluntary  —  as  they  function 
in  preaching,  it  takes  up  first  the  psychic  phenomena  of 
the  mass  as  they  appear  in  assembly  and  community 
groups;  second,  three  important  occupational  types,  the 
minister,  the  labouring  man  and  the  business  man ;  third, 
the  "  modern  mind  "  or  the  peculiar  mental  attitudes  of 
modern  men  as  contrasted  with  the  characteristic  atti- 
tudes of  more  primitive  men.  The  book  should  be  es- 
pecially helpful  to  ministers,  as  well  as  of  service  to  all 
who  are  interested  in  present  day  religious  problems. 


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